We're not so different you know

I don't think many people in the West like credit score system either tbh

Since this is an anarchist instance, I was willing to give OP the benefit of a doubt that this is against states in general but, alas, reading their comments it is whataboutism
- In another thread they were praising Stalin so I don’t think they deserve benefit of the doubt.
- Feel free to respond to my comments if you wanna argue against them. Not sure why you’re hiding over here lol.

Two things can be bad at the same time.

This thought-terminating cliche is getting so tired. You may as well just say "let's just agree to disagree".
It's telling that this cliche is most often applied when western whataboutism is correctly called out, and all it does is serve to legitimize the act of manufacturing consent against China.
USA invents credit score way back in the 50s
credit score is immediately used to pull off the most calculatingly misogynistic, racist, and classist financial enforcement in modern history.
china implements a technically similar system that aims not to control working people's financial agency, but to strengthen public trust.
the west immediately spins up the presses and releases dozens of hit pieces a year that manufacture consent against China by portraying the Chinese social credit system as an orwellian nightmare that will rip a child out of their parent's home if the household spends too much time on videos games.
leftists identify this whataboutism and correctly call it out
liberals drop one of their various thought-terminating cliches to (not so) subtly bolster the western narrative - thus manufacturing consent against China.
You've been effortlessly oriented by the State Department and its various propaganda apparatus.
- You've been effortlessly oriented by the State Department and its various propaganda apparatus.
  Can you explain to me, how I'm propagandized by a foreign government when I'm not cheering on the policies of their opponent?
  I'm not taking any sides on this conflict, because it's not my conflict. I'm a socialist... Let me assure you that my fundamental critique of the chinese state apparatus doesn't really align too much with the US state propaganda.
- How is it thought terminating to consider two different things bad at the same time?
- If you believe China's social credit system is a good way to "strengthen public trust" then I want to know how you feel about people like Xu Xiaodong, whose social credit was destroyed for exposing fake martial artists and refusing to apologize to them.
- oriented
  I see what you did there.
- Could we stop saying "west" when you seem to mean commonwealth?
Yes that seems to be the point of the post
- Not if you look at OP's other comments.
The former is a voluntary system, the latter can make you homeless.
- It doesn't say it's voluntary, it says there were voluntary pilot programs within the larger initiative, which, as far as I can tell, is not voluntary.
  Also, there can be harsh penalties including being put on blacklists that prevent you from traveling or your children from receiving education.
- Both are technocratic systems of control.

The US has both:

The Chinese Social Credit score is where your Facebook and other social media are scoured by HR before you are hired. But if you are rich, your Facebook posts don't matter because your Dad made you an executive the company.

A Credit Score is pure capitalism. You can be a racist asshole and get the best deal from banks because you have money.

China is no different with their Princeling "Fuerdai".

“There has been a widespread misconception that China operates a nationwide and unitary social credit "score" based on individuals' behavior, leading to punishments if the score is too low. Media reports in the West have sometimes exaggerated or inaccurately described this concept. It issued guidelines clarifying that citizens could not be punished for having low scores”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

Social credit in China is more about gauging trustworthiness of business entities. Something that is a great benefit to their citizens.

That may be the case but you people have to stop trying to defend China all the time. You can’t even search the word “democracy” without being added to a list.
- Interesting, where are you citing from?
- Ah yeah, because the five eyes (of which the UK is a member) doesn't flag people and add them to watchlists for comments potentially like this one
- This reads like someone who can't fathom that some people genuinely do like China and think it's doing a good job. It always comes back to Western chauvinism where we think that our values like liberal capitalism and bourgeois democracy are inherently superior to the values held by most people in the global south. Maybe they don't always want what we want.
  Too much criticism of China is based on falsehoods and deliberate misrepresentation of certain aspects of Chinese society, culture, and politics. Case in point: the social credit system. Criticism is fine if it's fair and based on facts.
- I’m pretty sure Trump will put you on a list for searching that too
- I am currently reading a book (Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers) by a CCP member and he talks about:
  The merits of Democracy
  Tienamen Square
  A better leadership style for China than what they have
  So you can talk about these things, but what isn't allowed is being inflammatory.
It sounds like it was the sort of horrid "good citizen" system in pilot cities until it was stopped
In 2019, the central government voiced dissatisfaction with pilot cities experimenting with social credit scores. It issued guidelines clarifying that citizens could not be punished for having low scores and that punishments should only be limited to legally defined crimes and civil infractions. As a result, pilot cities either discontinued their point-based systems or restricted them to voluntary participation with no major consequences for having low scores.
- It issued guidelines clarifying that citizens could not be punished for having low scores
  Somehow, I don't think tankies will be crediting the PRC for stopping this silly system before it got out of hand any time soon.

The Chinese social credit thing is a myth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

Not to say credit scores are fun, but comparing the two is kinda absurd. Credit scores are calculated by private companies and used by banks to determine your eligibility for a loan. Essentially, it's an averaged history of how good you are at repaying debt, and it's used to determine if you will repay future debt. The people who calculate your score have no interest in how it affects you. The social credit system is a government score and has tons of things that can affect it, and there's plenty of opportunity for fudgery to screw you over. There are tons of ways in can negatively affect you. Worst of all, it can be used to deny international flights, and in effect your ability to escape the system. Since this is actually run by the government, it creates an avenue for punishing political dissent and control that just doesn't exist with credit scores.

The main difference is that credit score exists while the Chinese social score doesn't.
The Social Credit doesn't exist, FICO does. One has more impact because it's real.
Right in the first half, extremely wrong in the second half (But you should be forgiven, we all get heavily propagandized about this stuff). What we know of the Chinese "social credit" score in the west is largely a tall tale / myth. Here, from the top of the English wikipedia article about the Chinese system:
There has been a widespread misconception that China operates a nationwide and unitary social credit "score" based on individuals' behavior, leading to punishments if the score is too low. Media reports in the West have sometimes exaggerated or inaccurately described this concept.[4][5][6] In 2019, the central government voiced dissatisfaction with pilot cities experimenting with social credit scores. It issued guidelines clarifying that citizens could not be punished for having low scores and that punishments should only be limited to legally defined crimes and civil infractions. As a result, pilot cities either discontinued their point-based systems or restricted them to voluntary participation with no major consequences for having low scores.[4][7] According to a February 2022 report by the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), a social credit "score" is a myth as there is "no score that dictates citizen's place in society".[4]
It's still a credit score system, so it's still one of those dumb monolithic systems a large authoritarian country implements when it can't be bothered to keep track of it's citizens on a qualitative level - Like FICO in the US - But it doesn't leak outside of that context in the way we westerners are told. In fact, our myths about that probably came out of the incidents in 2019 when the central government tamped down on local abuses of the system.

What the fuck is this nonsense?

Nobody likes credit scores but it's at least marginally financial measurements that are used for financial decisions.

It's regressive, but only because our society is regressive. A middle class person who overspends and doesn't pay their bills on time is probably gonna get treated better than a poor person who needs groceries and fails to pay their grocery bills on time, yes. But it's still financial.

The poor person isn't being stopped from buying a train ticket. They might not have money to do so, but that's a different societal fuck up.

At least compare apples to apples.

“It’s only financial I swear! Please don’t look up the countless studies on racial biases! Please!!”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_credit_scoring_systems_in_the_United_States#Racism
Yikes dude…
- Societal outcomes are worse pretty much across the board for all of those groups. See my long middle paragraph about how our whole society is fucked up.
  Every item listed on that page is a measurement indicating the end result which is inequality. Nothing on that page covers the why or the how. If Equifax is literally scoring people based on "how black a name sounds" (as with resume studies) then sure the actual scoring system is also broken. But it doesn't say that, it says outcomes are worse and unequal. Just like every other outcome in this country.

So actually looked into the social credit system a while ago and it turns out a lot of it is myth and it seems to have been largely wound down after some abuse by some of the ?prefectures? where it was trialed and used to punish a few people (it was supposed to reward good behaviour by businesses and institutions apparently) but what remains did strike me as very similar to credit score, although it's maybe slightly more accountable? Maybe?

Anyway both seem dogshit, although a system verifying how organisations actually act (e.g. counter greenwashing and shit with hard evidence) would be cool if anyone could make it work.

The ABC (Australian public broadcaster) did a thorough explainer debunking many of the myths around it recently.
Audio; https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/if-youre-listening/the-truth-about-chinas-social-credit-scores/106029740
Video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps0Si4FhOPM
As usual, investigation into socialist practices reveals that the negative opinions held by the west are largely based on propaganda and lies.

Because our ssn was stolen many of times, our credit score was low even after we fought off all the charges and couldn’t get an apartment without a garentour. Moved to Spain and never needed a garentour or social check in basic necessities, hell we could go for a loan and the only thing judged is our reasoning. Slowly waiting for permanent residency and citizenship :)

Two things can suck at the same time.

That's what he said! ... wait

You say western but I live in the UK and while credit ratings exist here I have never had a reason to care about them. Never even had a credit card. Only time I borrowed money is for my mortgage.

You say western but I live in the UK
You’re fucking with me right? …
Edit: My bad, did not understand the point you were making.
My new response is no shit you don’t gotta worry about credit score if you never owned a credit card lol
- Is the UK not considered the West? I don't understand.
  He's claiming this whole credit problem is US only and not the rest of the West.
- you don’t gotta worry about credit score if you never owned a credit card lol
  You don't understand what credit score is then.
- The usual response I get to not having a credit card is that I must get a credit score to rent or buy a house. Nope.
- That's not how credit scores work, my dude. Everybody has a credit score regardless of if they have a credit card or not. Your credit score gets used to qualify or disqualify you from a wide variety of financial products and services. A credit card is just one such product, and one of many ways you can influence your credit score.
  In the US, you could conceivably get a home mortgage without a credit card if your credit score is high enough for other reasons. The person you're replying to got a mortgage without a credit card because they're in Europe, where most countries do the same thing the US used to do when qualifying a person for a financial product prior to credit scores: Manually assess their worthiness by reviewing their submitted income, investments, and past purchases.
  The private FICO credit score is mostly an American thing, and has only been around for about 50 years, roughly the same as credit cards.

There are more 'social scores' than just the credit one. The main difference is that in the West it's kept in secret, while China is open about it. Of course, it's also different than American propaganda says.

Arguments can be made both in favor and against such systems or their parts. I think we can all agree that the American one goes far beyond reasonable social utility. The Chinese one too, probably. China may be a lot better than our media tells us, but it's still far from perfect.

The Chinese social credit system is largely a myth. It was a thing that got instituted city by city and was originally intended to be something like the Better Business Bureau or the FICO credit score in the US, but after a few cities used it to justify punishing individuals instead of championing good business it got rolled back in most places, with a new edict from the central government that such systems must never be used for punishment or restriction. Most Chinese have never had a "social credit score" and it was never a nationally-managed program.
- I really wish I understood the Chinese legal system better. It's like they operate under a different constellation of rights and it isn't immediately obvious to me how these cases play out. Maybe I should try finding some modern legal dramas from the mainland....

Damn, what happened here? I can only feel the warm ground, but I can tell there was a fire.

ikr, i feel like i missed the drama
- Guess we’ll never know, friend.

With or without credit scores, banks are going to be assessing you for whether you're likely to pay back the loans they provide. Even if you deleted all credit scores overnight so everyone had to do individual assessments, you're still getting assessed and a credit score in all but name will emerge. If you're a high risk, banks will just put a big mark on your name that says "Don't lend to this person, they don't pay their debts" like they do in Austria.

The only real difference between the US Credit Score and the Chinese Social Credit is that the Chinese Social Credit takes other factors into account in whether you are considered worthy enough to have a loan, which isn't aaaall that different to how it's done in the UK, where registering to vote makes your credit score go up, but then again lenders in the UK don't tend to use credit scores for things like mortgages, they use their own checks.

The only time you need to borrow money from a bank is of you are buying a house, really. Remove the strong incentive to buy a place to live and then a credit score becomes a vague thing that only people working in finance know or care about.
- 9/10 times yeah you're only really borrowing money from a bank for mortgages and that's the only loan you NEED to have. Otherwise there's credit cards, small business loans, car loans etc. You can probably get-by without those though.
banks are going to be assessing you for whether you're likely to pay back the loans they provide
Actually, this is not quite accurate. It's more accurately a score that summarizes how much the banks would want to lend you money. It is designed to make sure you are profitable not just in your ability to simply pay back a loan, but also to make them money.
And, statistically, it's also systemically racist.
- It was systematically racist before credit scores as well. Before credit scores, whether you got a loan was dependent on the bank manager 'liking you', and by that I mean if you stepped into that room with skin any darker than the sheets the bank manager wore at the weekend, you weren't getting a loan.

Isnt social credit system just a meme?

759 credit score. Still don't qualify.

If you lack sufficient Internet points you cannot discuss that here.

So credit scores are... good?

I hate you.

Could at least argue credit shows your payment history and debt to income ratio, social credit score could be literally anything. Both can suck at the same time.