Free Pietje 🇵🇸 🍉Feb 17, 2019

On  @SamHarrisOrg said:
"Welcome to the panopticon...
China becomes an episode of Black Mirror"
and shared this article:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278

to which my response was:
"Give it 5-10 years, then we'll have it too, but with better marketing, but effectively similar.
IIRC Eindhoven has a system (in pilot?) 'similar' as shown in the head picture (Person of Interest style) ... for a snitch city project. Fighting crime and/or terrorism will be used too"

Leave no dark corner

Dandan Fan's every move will soon be watched and judged by her government, and she's happy about that. "Social credit" will unite Big Brother and big data to coerce more than a billion people.

ABC News
Show threadSosthène the ZealotFeb 18, 2019
@FreePietje I'm highly suspicious of all the articles we've been reading recently about China's "social credit". Not to say that the surveillance is not pervasive and relatively effective, but i have good reasons to believe they are nowhere near being able to effectively monitor 1.4 billion people, whose about 50% still live in the countryside.
On the other hand, I think they have good motives to make the world thinks they can
Show threadFree Pietje 🇵🇸 🍉Feb 18, 2019
@Sosthene
Why/what has made you suspicious?
Show threadSosthène the ZealotFeb 18, 2019
@FreePietje we have really been reading a lot on this recently, we have a lot of nice footage of the CCTV system mapping people and car in the streets, I can't think of another way for western media to have so much info that the Chinese gov willingly feeding them this. Beside the technological issue to have such a massive coverage, there's also social issue, Chinese are not "ants", they perfectly know how to cheat, disobey and rebel when they're not satisfied.
Show threadFree Pietje 🇵🇸 🍉Feb 18, 2019

@Sosthene
Other people, like @tim, have been talking about it for quite a while, when it wasn't that popular.

So the info has been available for a while. Having (western) MSM in just a few hands, combined with their revenue model (ads -> clicks), combined with typical effects of 'social' media, you often see certain topics dominating the 'news' for a (short) while, before it moves on to the next hot topic.

Show threadFree Pietje 🇵🇸 🍉Feb 18, 2019
@Sosthene Similar thing is happening now with Huawei.
The risk of supply-chain-attacks have been known for quite a while as is the suspicion of Huawei's ties with the Chinese gov. And then all of a sudden it became a hot topic.
My (uneducated/tin-foil-hattery) guess is that it's a story pushed by the US gov so that US companies will be selected to provide the equipment for 5G. Good for the US economy ... and so that they can backdoor it themselves.
Show threadFree Pietje 🇵🇸 🍉Feb 18, 2019

@Sosthene
I can name a whole host of other topics which have (followed) the same pattern.

As usual, the real situation is much more nuanced, but I guess that doesn't sell that well and/or requires actually investigating the matter (and be willing so look at it from different angles).

The endless use of a single image (CCTV) is regretful ... and often misleading.
'Darknet' markets and privacy also often get negative imagery used.
Or a physical coin with a B when it's about bitcoin.

Show threadFree Pietje 🇵🇸 🍉Feb 18, 2019
@Sosthene
I do find it interesting that you seem to think it's an image pushed by the Chinese gov, while I consider it more a negative/dystopian image pushed by western media and govs.
I see it as "we good, they bad"
Show threadSosthène the Zealot
@FreePietje And I'm a bit mixed about the narrative being pushed by westerners on westerners, the "look those bastards implementing real life dystopia" is mostly implied at least for what I've read, and western media are already mostly collectivist and pro authority, most westerners already gave up most of their freedom and mindlessly giving away their privacy to FB and Google. The dystopia is already here, the social score would only be the cherry on the cake, and we are ready for it
Feb 18, 2019 at 2:59pmWeb