State Control by Stealth in the Big Data Era – From WeChat to the Social Credit System in China

This paper begins with a brief study on the development of the Chinese all-in-one app, WeChat, explaining how WeChat secured its popularity as the multi-functional ubiquitous mobile app in China. By using WeChat as an example, this paper further studies how the Social Credit System (SCS) in China was established out of collaboration between the Chinese government and eight entrusted private companies. This paper then analyses and evaluates the SCS from a socio-legal perspective, focusing on two key implications: the opaque algorithms and the potential abuse of power. The paper argues that the SCS needs to first gain trust from Chinese citizens. A starting point would be immediate action to standardise and reduce the opacity of the prototype. To enhance the longevity and effectiveness of the SCS, developing a legal framework to prohibit potential information misuse by the State and the entrusted companies is crucial: it needs to be put in place sooner rather than later. In constructing the much-needed legal framework, developing privacy laws is certainly a core step, but the framework needs more than just privacy laws. One crucial safeguard is the requirement for an independent tribunal or ombudsman to deal with credit-related complaints fairly and efficiently.

A Method for Behavior Change Support by Controlling Psychological Effects on Walking Motivation Caused by Step Count Log Competition System

Systems presenting information that encourages competition by using rankings and scores (hereafter referred to as competition information) have become widespread to support behavioral change. However, users without high levels of motivation, such as behavior change support targets, do not necessarily benefit from competition information. In this study, we propose a method to control the psychological effects caused by competition information to support behavior change. We implemented a competition information presentation system using step counts logs to support increasing one’s daily steps. We designed two patterns of competition information considering psychological effects. One is likely to have good effects, using three mechanisms to easily obtain results corresponding to the effort, make closely matched rivals with similar abilities, and pay attention to a small number of rivals. The other is unlikely to have positive effects and may potentially even have negative ones, using a mechanism that brings about the opposite results of the former pattern. We evaluated 42 participants with low levels of motivation over six weeks. The results showed that the former information pattern increased participants’ step counts by about 1000 steps per day, and the latter information pattern did not lead to an increase. We confirmed the feasibility of the proposed method and discussed the possibility of the appropriate use and potential abuse of such techniques for manipulating motivation. Our study can be helpful in designing a competition information presentation system considering psychological effects.

Benefits And Performance Of The Electronic Construction Journal

Electronic construction journal (later – e-journal) has been developed to replace a former paper construction journal. The purpose of e-journal is to ensure effective supervision of road construction and reconstruction works and to avoid potential abuse. Records made by contractors, supervisors and controlling institutions in e-journal enable to manage the work process in each road construction and reconstruction building site. All road construction process participants have access to the data, comments and findings entered into e-journal. E-journal accurately records all deadlines, technical supervision or control performance time. It is a significantly faster and more effective means of control and quality assurance of performed works.

Law Enforcement Issues During Covid-19: Experience from Malaysia and Indonesia

This article examines the legal issues relating to the State Administrators’ enforcement of policies, rules, and decision-making in Malaysia and Indonesia during the pandemic from the perspective of administrative law. The State Administrators have come out with various Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) that impacted the people. It is argued that administrative law can discern potential abuse by State administrators while enforcing the law. This article will examine the enforcement issues in both nations by utilizing doctrinal and comparative analysis. Consequently, some exercise of discretion of the executive can be questioned and challenged under the purview of administrative law. Keywords: Administrative law, law enforcement, administrative discretion; Covid-19 eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v6iSI6.3052

ONCE AGAIN IUSTUS ERROR AND SURETYSHIPS Absa Bank Ltd v Trzebiatowsky 2012 (5) SA 134 (ECP)

In Absa Bank Ltd v Trzebiatowsky (2012 (5) SA 134 (ECP)) the court was faced with a defence that has become all too common within the context of suretyship agreements, namely that of iustus error, or rather material and reasonable mistake rendering the contract void. Traditionally the courts have been wary of releasing a signatory of a contractual document from liability in the absence of some form of misrepresentation on the part of the contract assertor, but in Brink v Humphries & Jewell (Pty) Ltd (2005 (2) SA 419 (SCA)) the Supreme Court of Appeal adopted a far more lenient approach, one which opened the door for potential abuse of this defence, especially it seems so where suretyships are involved. The Trzebiatowsky decision is relevant for confirming the more traditional approach as opposed to the one largely ushered in by Brink and for sensibly reflecting the issues relevant to adjudicating these cases.

A Comparison of Acute Pharmacological Effects of Methylone and MDMA Administration in Humans and Oral Fluid Concentrations as Biomarkers of Exposure

Considered the β-keto analogue of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy), 3,4-Methylenedioxymethcathinone (methylone) is a synthetic cathinone. Over the years, methylone has been used as a substitute for conventional psychostimulants, such as MDMA. To date, little is known about the human pharmacology of methylone; the only available information has been provided by surveys or published intoxication reports. In the present observational–naturalistic study, we evaluate the acute subjective and physiological effects of methylone after oral self-administration in comparison to MDMA in healthy poly-drug users. Fourteen participants (10 males, 4 females) selected their single oral doses of methylone from 100 to 300 mg (n = 8, mean dose 187.5 mg) or MDMA from 75 to 100 mg (n = 6, mean dose 87.5 mg) based on their experience. Study variables were assessed at 0, 1, 2, and 4 h (h) and included vital signs (non-invasive blood pressure, heart rate, cutaneous temperature) and subjective effects using visual analogue scales (VAS), the 49-item Addiction Research Centre Inventory (ARCI) short form, and the Evaluation of the Subjective Effects of Substances with Abuse Potential (VESSPA-SSE) questionnaire. Additionally, oral fluid concentrations of methylone and MDMA were determined. Acute pharmacological effects produced by methylone followed the prototypical psychostimulant and empathogenic profile associated with MDMA, although they were less intense. Methylone concentrations in oral fluid can be considered a useful biomarker to detect acute exposure in oral fluid. Oral fluid concentrations of MDMA and methylone peaked at 2 h and concentrations of MDMA were in the range of those previously described in controlled studies. Our results demonstrate that the potential abuse liability of methylone is similar to that of MDMA in recreational subjects.

Cracks in Education: Alternative Schooling in Cultic Groups

The breakdown of cross-social values characteristic in a cult, expressed in limiting its members’ contacts with people from outside their own community, manifests itself in its critical attitude towards the common education system, and therefore in establishing its own schools, with a formula of education that is different from that found in traditional educational institutions. Some groups also use legal provisions enabling the implementation of home education, which allows them to protect children against the harmful, in their opinion, impact of the external environment. All this leads to a kind of gap in the cult’s relationship with the education system, causing it to lose both external and internal control mechanisms to limit potential abuse, making children from cultic milieu more vulnerable and defenseless than their peers growing up in a society equipped with the mentioned mechanisms, even if they are sometimes insufficiently implemented. Pupils taught in the mainstream school system maintain regular contact with their peers from different families and social groups. Similarly, teachers and other employees of the education system are embedded in different social contexts, which provides them with a perspective that lets them notice an occurring problem and offer help to the child.

Summoning the Sick and Violent to Jail

This chapter presents ethnographic evidence to understand how medicine relates to the daily problems of filling up a large urban jail. The major problem of jailing is that there are far too many sick incarcerated persons and persons with serious criminal biographies than there are available specialized cells. The chapter shows that in order to resolve these problems, jailers reinterpret inmates’ biographies through stigma about the potential abuse of medical services and the widespread use of pharmaceuticals to quell disturbances. It is this work that jailers do, producing sick inmates, rather than the biographies that inmates bring with them, which ensures that the limited space of the jail can always accommodate the demand for space. In total, the expansion of medicine in jails is neither about serving inmates’ needs nor ignoring them, but instead is about using medicalization to resolve the fundamental problems of the overcrowded jail.