Discussion: View Thread

SIMians,

Some have asked for an update on the forthcoming SIM teaching website page. Surveys have been gathered and standardized. AOM is, I think, making changes to a host of pages and when that is done we'll upload the information, hopefully by the end of the year.

As a related aside ... one way to keep the SIM class relevant, of course, is latest news issues and other updates. Below is something I just learned about in China's initial development of a "Social Credit System" (dark side of social value congruence) which I sent my students to read and discuss in class. Use if you like.

Best regards,

Denis Collins

Edgewood College

dcollins@edgewood.edu

BUS 616 Students,

One more on China ... attached is an extract from Who Can You Trust? How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart (Penguin Portfolio) by Rachel Botsman, published on October 4. Since this piece was written, The People's Bank of China delayed the licences to the eight companies conducting social credit pilots. The government's plans to launch the Social Credit System in 2020 remain unchanged

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-invasion

It's about China's initial development of a "Social Credit System." I've copied some basic info below to give you a feel. This would be the dark side of the book I'm writing, which is why I emphasize dialogue and democracy, to offset that likelihood.

Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens

The Chinese government plans to launch its Social Credit System in 2020. The aim? To judge the trustworthiness – or otherwise – of its 1.3 billion residents

By RACHEL BOTSMAN                                                Saturday 21 October 2017

On June 14, 2014, the State Council of China published an ominous-sounding document called "Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System". In the way of Chinese policy documents, it was a lengthy and rather dry affair, but it contained a radical idea. What if there was a national trust score that rated the kind of citizen you were?

Imagine a world where many of your daily activities were constantly monitored and evaluated: what you buy at the shops and online; where you are at any given time; who your friends are and how you interact with them; how many hours you spend watching content or playing video games; and what bills and taxes you pay (or not). It's not hard to picture, because most of that already happens, thanks to all those data-collecting behemoths like Google, Facebook and Instagram or health-tracking apps such as Fitbit. But now imagine a system where all these behaviours are rated as either positive or negative and distilled into a single number, according to rules set by the government. That would create your Citizen Score and it would tell everyone whether or not you were trustworthy. Plus, your rating would be publicly ranked against that of the entire population and used to determine your eligibility for a mortgage or a job, where your children can go to school - or even just your chances of getting a date.

... For now, technically, participating in China's Citizen Scores is voluntary. But by 2020 it will be mandatory.

... Individuals on Sesame Credit are measured by a score ranging between 350 and 950 points [based on 5 factors]...  the fourth category, behaviour and preference, is where it gets interesting. ...  "Someone who plays video games for ten hours a day, for example, would be considered an idle person," says Li Yingyun, Sesame's Technology Director.

Friends matter, too. The fifth category is interpersonal relationships. What does their choice of online friends and their interactions say about the person being assessed? Sharing what Sesame Credit refers to as "positive energy" online, nice messages about the government or how well the country's economy is doing, will make your score go up.... But here's the real kicker: a person's own score will also be affected by what their online friends say and do, beyond their own contact with them. If someone they are connected to online posts a negative comment, their own score will also be dragged down.

Xxx