Social credit score

[Greg.D.]

China's chilling plan to use social credit ratings to keep score on its citizens

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/opinions/china-social-credit-score-creemers/index.html

 

Okay, so the writers do not write the headlines, but this article is a great (and rare) example of balanced thinking and writing. It could be spun - and will be - by people with an agenda. For sure, I am very glad I was born and live in the U.S.A. and love my privacy, though I know it is a recent and modern development. I don't do facebook, won't use google and regularly delete any tracking cookies I get other than from websites I log into.

 

This article, written by a Brit, explains the goal of the massive tracking system the government will do in China in order to track everybody, profile them, and score their social fitness.

 

The writer calmly discusses how this is a Chinese solution for Chinese society, we may not like it, but it is actually consistent with their Confucian attitudes and values. Secondly, he points out that it is (eerily?) similar to google and stops there. If we don't agree or question our attitudes at that point, he does not have to deal with it.

 

I brought home a new (gifted) Samsung Galaxy Note Edge (pretty cool!) but can not use it because: too much is still in Chinese after changing the language to English and the google app store is not loaded. In fact, seems like every app I might want to use reaches back to Baidu to help me. I don't like that, whether it is google or Baidu.

 

So, I will root it and re-flash the ROM with something more universal and less intrusive.