scholarly journals From Bulletin Boards to Big Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-62
Author(s):  
Christian Göbel ◽  
Jie Li
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Feedback Systems ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Bulletin Boards ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Set Up

Why do Chinese governments at various levels set up public complaint websites where citizen petitions and government responses can be reviewed by the general public? We argue that it is the result of two factors: strong signals sent by the central government to improve governance, and the availability of new technologies to promote policy innovation. To impress their superiors, local officials adopted newly available commercial technology to innovate existing citizen feedback systems, which presented a developmental trajectory from “openness,” “integration,” to “big data-driven prediction.” Drawing on policy documents and interviews with local politicians and administrators, we provide a chronological perspective of how technical development, central government’s signals and local decision-making have interacted in the past two decades to bring forth today’s public complaint websites. The contingent and non-teleological nature of this development can also be applied to other policies such as the social credit system.

scholarly journals Give us a little social credit: to design or to discover personal ratings in the era of Big Data

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abigail Devereaux ◽  
Linan Peng
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Credit Rating ◽  
Credit Ratings ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
The State ◽  
State Council ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Personal Credit ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Financial Credit

AbstractIn 2014, the State Council of the Chinese Communist Party announced the institution of a social credit system by 2020, a follow-up to a similar statement on the creation of a social credit system issued by the State Council in 2007. Social credit ratings of the type being developed by the State Council in partnership with Chinese companies go beyond existing financial credit ratings in an attempt to project less-tangible personal characteristics like trustworthiness, criminal tendencies, and group loyalty onto a single scale. The emergence of personal credit ratings is enabled by Big Data, automated decision-making processes, machine learning, and facial recognition technology. It is quite likely that various kinds of personal and social credit ratings shall become reality in the near future. We explore China's version of its social credit system so far, compare the welfare and epistemological qualities of an ecology of personal ratings emanating from polycentric sources versus a social credit rating, and discuss whether a social credit system in an ideologically driven state is less a tool to maximize social welfare through trustworthiness provision and more a method of preventing and punishing deviance from a set of party-held ideological values.

scholarly journals Unpacking China’s Social Credit System: Informatization, Regulatory Framework, and Market Dynamics

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lianrui Jia
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Population Analysis ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Internet Technology ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Regulatory Data

Background  China, with a population of 802 million internet users, a handful of the world’s largest internet companies, and an unfolding Social Credit System (SCS), is often criticized for exerting its data power to surveil and discipline its population. Analysis  This article first provides a historical and situated analysis of the SCS as a part of China’s informatization and datafication processes. It then highlights problems in the current legal and regulatory data-protection framework and discusses the self-regulation practices of the private sector. Conclusions and implications  Overall, this case study provides a historical and contextualized understanding of China’s SCS and related big data developments and assesses the implications of these development for the globalizing Chinese internet, technology companies and the Chinese public.Contexte  Avec une population de 802 million d’utilisateurs d’Internet, avec quelques des plus grandes sociétés Internet du monde, et une Système de Crédit Sociale (SCS) en pleine développement, La Chine est souvent critiqué pour utilizer son pouvoir de données pour surveiller et discipliner sa population. Analyse  Tout d’abord, cet article fournit une analyse historique et située de la SCS comme partie des processus de informatisation et datafication de la Chine. Ensuite, il souligne les problèmes du cadre juridique et régulatoire actuel en matière de protection des données et examine les pratiques d’autorégulation du secteur privé.Conclusions et implications  En global, cette étude de cas fournit une compréhension historique et contextualisée du SCS chinois et de l’évolution du Big Data, et évalue les implications de ce développement pour l’Internet chinois en pleine mondialisation, les entreprises technologiques et le public chinois.

When Bentham Meets Big Data in Times of COVID-19

2022 ◽  
pp. 168-186
Author(s):  
Filiz Resuloğlu
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
High Time ◽  
Risk Of Infection ◽  
Credit System ◽  
New Normal ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Governance Model ◽  
Short Time

2020 has been marked by a ‘once in a century crisis' that influenced the dynamics of the globe deeply. Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic, most daily practices had to be transferred to online platforms as humanity was supposed to adopt social and physical distancing to avoid the risk of infection. Even technologically illiterate people were abruptly charged with online tasks as part of their jobs or responsibilities. It suddenly turned out to be high time to go online and have a digital identity to keep pace with the new normal life. Thus, internet has taken its place among the basic needs more specifically than before. This chapter is about the technology-driven supervisory social credit system which is said to have contributed to Chinese state to manage the COVID-19 crisis in a short time. Exploring the foundations, motives, and highlights of the system, this chapter proposes a framework for a potential digital governance model coined as the Cyber Leviathan and bears importance in terms of crisis management.

Challenging Western Legal Orientalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Marta Infantino ◽  
Weiwei Wang
Keyword(s):  
Legal Framework ◽  
State Council ◽  
Credit System ◽  
The West ◽  
Chinese Cities ◽  
Chinese Law ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Pilot Programs ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Measurement Practices

Abstract In 2014 the Chinese State Council announced the establishment of a nationwide comprehensive social credit system. Western narratives often describe the initiative as a technologically enhanced tool of autocratic control for scoring people. Yet, as the paper aims to show, similar accounts are tainted by several misunderstandings which perpetuate Western orientalist postures towards Chinese law.For the purpose of comparatively assessing the Chinese social credit system, the paper analyses the pilot programs set up to monitor people and enterprises’ behaviour by twenty-eight Chinese cities. The analysis will demonstrate that these pilot programs rely on low-tech methodologies, have limited strings attached, and are based on a relatively transparent legal framework. From a comparative perspective, our findings suggest that Chinese cities’ experiments raise problems that are similar to those posed by measurement practices widely employed in the West.

The State and Digital Society in China: Big Brother Xi is Watching You!

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (01) ◽  
pp. 2040003
Author(s):  
JEAN-PIERRE CABESTAN
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Big Brother ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Privacy Breaches ◽  
And Control

There is no question that China is ahead of many developed countries in the digitalization of both its society and surveillance systems. It is also clear that the new technologies made possible by this digitalization — the widespread use of smart ID cards, the Great Firewall, the accumulation of Big Data, the social credit system (SCS) and facial recognition — have enhanced the capacity of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to rule China, maintain control over society and stay in power indefinitely. While these are not the only systems in place to manage and control Chinese citizens and this is not their sole purpose, these developments have been rightly seen as part of an ambitious Orwellian project to micromanage and microcontrol every aspect of Chinese society. To better comprehend the significance of this new phenomenon, this paper employs Michel Foucault’s “Panopticon” metaphor, the perfect mean of surveillance and discipline as well as an “apparatus of power.” Yet, these new technologies have their own limits. In real life there is no perfect Panopticon as no society, even the most controlled one, is a sealed prison. Censorship on the Web is erratic and the full implementation of the SCS is likely to be postponed beyond 2020 for both technical and political reasons, as more Chinese citizens have raised concerns about unchecked data collection and privacy breaches. As a result, China is probably heading toward a somewhat fragmented digitalized society and surveillance system that is more repressive in some localities and more flexible in others, as is the case with the Chinese bureaucracy in general.

scholarly journals Tackling Delinquency in the Era of Social Credit System: Prospects and Risks

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-294
Author(s):  
Roman Rouvinsky ◽  
Evgeny Tsarev
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Big Data Analytics ◽  
Legal Liability ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
The Social

The paper is devoted to the changes in fighting delinquency connected to the application of artificial intelligence and Big Data analytics. The focus of the paper has been made on the Social Credit System and related advanced mechanisms of control and surveillance, which are currently being built and implemented in China. The issue of how the latest technologies of social control impact the fight against crimes and administrative offences has been examined. The transforming effect of introduction of the Social Credit System and algorithmic mechanisms of social control upon the legal system and some of its institutions (notably, the legal liability institution, the punishment, the concept of an offender) has been assessed in the paper. The authors come to the conclusion that the introduction of the Social Credit System in China and the development of algorithmic mechanisms of social control and crime prevention may lead to the separation of punishment from the construct of legal liability and the concept of an offence as a guilty deed.

scholarly journals The Future of Biometrics and Liberal Democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
Marcus Smith ◽  
Seumas Miller
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Key Features ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe first part of this chapter considers future biometrics, with a focus on second generation biometrics that measure physiological patterns. The second discusses the potential biometric future – how the use of biometrics, data and algorithms more broadly, could be used by governments to regulate social and economic interactions. This discussion will draw on the development of credit systems, from those used in commercial online platforms to rate the performance of providers and users, to the more integrated and all-encompassing social credit system (SCS) implemented in China, as an example of a potential future development in liberal democratic countries. Finally, we discuss the key features of liberal democratic theory and how biometric and related technological developments may change governance in western democracies. While we briefly mention some relevant developments in the private sector, our main focus will be on the relationship between liberal democratic governments and their security agencies, on the one hand, and their citizenry, on the other. We describe in general terms how liberal democracies might respond to these new technologies in a manner that preserves their benefits without unduly compromising established liberal democratic institutions, principles and values. Accordingly, we seek to offer a response to some of the dual use ethical dilemmas posed by biometrics, albeit in general terms.

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