- What if you had a credit score that didn't just count the money you use, the
money you owe, or the money you save; what if you had a credit score that measured
the kind of citizen you are?
This week we are exploring very strange concept: a social credit score.
It's called sesame credit. You have heard of this possibly in the news — it goes
back a few years, it's still in sort of a pilot program — sesame credit is being
created by the Chinese government via what's called the Ant Financial Services Group.
Ant Financial Services Group is affiliated with Alibaba, which is sort of
think of it like a China-based Amazon, but much more successful. As of April 2016,
Alibaba became the world's largest retailer. So Alibaba and Ant Financial
are also affiliated with this thing called AliPay — A - L - I - pay.
AliPay — this is a little bit dry but it's important — is in charge of financial transactions.
It's a third party platform that allows transactions to occur
without a transaction fee. And they're working with the big boys — they've got
MasterCard, Visa, what-have-you. This market that AliPay controls would be
about a little less than half of all the online payment markets in China.
That may not sound like a big deal, but let's consider that in 2015 China had a
population of around 1.3 billion people. And of those people who have any kind of
financial business online, almost half of them are going through this one place.
And this one place is giving financial data to this one thing called Sesame Credit.
And sesame credit then, with all of this data, it aggregates it,
and it gives people a certain score. We've heard conflicting information
about how it pulls this in and what exactly its algorithm is — if you're
watching this within a few years of this video coming out, sesame credit is
currently an opt-in system, but there are concerns. Its opponents allege that the
official statements about sesame credit — both from the spokespeople, from government
officials and what-have-you — are not entirely honest, that they're
disingenuous. Because the question becomes not just a
question of measuring financial information and then assigning a score
based on that, which is, you know, a credit score is ultimately the likelihood that
a person will pay off a loan or make good on a debt. But this system, according
to a statement from representatives of the company, also looks at the type of
things you buy, and they're little bit murky about how detailed this
investigation or analysis is. So for example, according to the statement if
they see that someone is spending 10 hours a day in their living room on
their couch playing video games making in-app purchases, then they will think
this is a more idle or sedentary person. However, if they see somebody is buying
diapers now, then they will say they're probably a parent, and if they're a
parent then on balance, they're probably going to be more responsible. So in that
first case, the score may fall a little, and in the second case, the score may rise a
little. And it's a question again of how deep do they go? Here's what critics are
worried about: what if this evolves past just a financial aggregator? What about
your social media? What if you post a link that is you know censored or
politically subversive or divisive? What if you seem to support a dissident group?
Well then, of course, your score would lower — but here's the kicker... What if they
do that sort of Kevin Bacon connection game? What if your score also depends on
your friend's score? And this becomes dangerous, if this happens, because it
allows for social pressure. It's a subversion of the old state
surveillance models, wherein instead of having a top-down thing that enforces
stability through the rule of fear, the fear of consequence, it incentivizes other
people to say to their you know their relative, their friend, their spouse, their
kid, their parent "don't do this," "don't don't post this thing," "stop going to this,"
right? Because you are lowering my score. And the big question is what happens if
your score improves? If it's like a credit score, then it means it's easier
for you to get loans, right, start that small business;
it's easier for paperwork to be processed for a travel visa. Currently,
sesame credit says that there are not going to be any penalties, but people
will be rewarded for their trustworthiness, which is a fairly obtuse
statement, and there's no way around that. The algorithm is the stuff they don't
want you to know, as is the ultimate plan and aim of sesame credit. And a lot of
this may sound like alarmism, you know — someone running around screaming "the sky
is falling! George Orwell is rolling over in his grave, and soon you will not be
able to live without some sort of eye on the digital shadow of your life!" And
maybe that would be completely true, but there is one seed of doubt planted here.
The system is opt-in now, but in 2020 it becomes mandatory. And that means that,
whether they like it or not, everyone living there will have a sesame credit score.
Maybe this will change slowly by degree, like frogs in slowly boiling water,
or like Facebook's Privacy Policy. What this means is that there are
important, crucial, profound questions that will come up in the future, in the
very near future. You may be watching this video in 2020 and if so, we'd love
to hear what your experience is, if you have a mandatory sesame credit account.
In the meantime, while we wait for the future to rush out as headlong like a
car collision, write to us. Let us know in the comments — is this a good thing
overall? Does this promote stability? Does this promote unity? Does it give people a
chance to be evaluated in a more fair manner? Or is the potential for it to be
a tool of oppression? Is that the ultimate aim of the program? At this
point, there's not enough evidence either way to say for sure. But one thing is for
certain, the evolution of technology is outpacing the evolution of legislation,
the evolution of social mores, and technology is inherently disruptive.
What's going to happen when this stuff comes into full force and all the old
mores and all the old ways of doing things shatter
into a thousand pieces or 1.393 billion. Thanks so much for watching.
If you'd like to learn more, please tune into our audio podcasts
about the rise and the future of sesame credit. And as always, if you have
feedback and you rather not leave them in the comments, if you'd like to talk to
Matt, Noel, Scully and I directly, we'd love to hear from you.
You can write to us directly at
conspiracy@howstuffworks.com
