Crimes are punished outside the legal system, which means no presumption of innocence, no legal representation, no judge, no jury, and often no appeal. In other words, it’s an alternative legal system where the accused have fewer rights.One way of controlling this is to have the government insist that Americans' rights be in no way limited by corporations, and to establish protections that would void any "license agreement" that abridged such rights. That, however, depends on the government being a limit on corporations rather than aligning with them. The alignment of corporate and government power is quite likely, given the resources corporations have, and the benefit to overweening politicians of being able to have a compliant corporation enforce limits on the citizenry that the Constitution would not allow.
Social credit systems are an end-run around the pesky complications of the legal system. Unlike China’s government policy, the social credit system emerging in the U.S. is enforced by private companies. If the public objects to how these laws are enforced, it can’t elect new rule-makers.
An increasing number of societal “privileges” related to transportation, accommodations, communications, and the rates we pay for services (like insurance) are either controlled by technology companies or affected by how we use technology services. And Silicon Valley’s rules for being allowed to use their services are getting stricter.
If current trends hold, it’s possible that in the future a majority of misdemeanors and even some felonies will be punished not by Washington, D.C., but by Silicon Valley. It’s a slippery slope away from democracy and toward corporatocracy.
In other words, in the future, law enforcement may be determined less by the Constitution and legal code, and more by end-user license agreements.
Social Media Building Chinese-Style "Social Credit" System
Well, of course they are. They helped build China's.
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Well, in a way this is becoming what used to be reputation. In even a medium-sized city, a bad reputation may not mean very much today; you just hang out at different places where no one knows your old rep.
Used to be, in pre-urbanization days, that one's reputation in the community could be everything. If you got a bad rep for being not following community mores, you could be denied jobs, housing, transportation, businesses wouldn't do business with you, etc. All potentially based on rumor and innuendo.
That's how America was originally set up.
Used to be, your reputation was based on character, not political affiliation.
I don't see anything in the article about political affiliation being used, or asked for. Get into fights at a bar that participates in the system? You get tagged as a trouble maker. No one asks which party you belong to.
The problem is that this is potentially total, like the Chinese system. Twitter blocks your access to what is increasingly the public square; Google blocks search results with your name, and also begins punitive steps against anyone who searches for you. Airlines refuse to sell tickets to “disruptive” people, who are also refused seating at restaurants. The lists are made available to the FBI, as a public service, and being on them is taken to justify the application of red flag laws.
Etc. etc.
"Used to be, in pre-urbanization days, that one's reputation in the community could be everything"
Marshall McLuhan referred to the "Global Village" enabled by rapid transportation and electronics...As it turns out, the global village has some of the not-so-favorable characteristics of the actual traditional village. I wrote about this at Freedom, the Village, and Social Media:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/58551.html
It’s a slippery slope away from democracy and toward corporatocracy.
Ike warned about the Corporatocracy about 50 years ago; it existed, but merely in a different form.
The problem is that this is potentially total, like the Chinese system.
Sure, I see that, but I don't think all methods of logging people's behavior are necessarily bad. If they get twisted to flag people for political beliefs, etc., then yes, that's bad. And yes, that's a real danger.
However, flagging people who regularly get into fights in bars so other bar owners can be warned isn't all that bad an idea.
"However, flagging people who regularly get into fights in bars so other bar owners can be warned isn't all that bad an idea."
I think this is cherry picking an innocuous example to gain acceptance for a concept with horrific potential. This will be used to identify and isolate political others. It is a useful lever, therefore, it will be picked up and used.
Some politician said "Imagine, before voting yea, that this law will be twisted as far as possible by someone who hates you" and only then make your decision. (I don't remember who said it , or the exact phrasing, but the idea is clear).
A reputation is something that you craft for yourself as a construct of your experiences and behavior. It is wholly yours, just like your credit score. But: What if these data sets were in the creative control of somebody who bore you an animus?
Anybody who doesn't see the practical, monstrous, powerful utility of this idea, in this age of being arbitrarily shunned and shamed in cyberspace or in public, by unaccountable groups of people who want to punish you for your 'otherness', is simply not paying attention. The experiment is being played out in real time, with satisfactory results. There is a subset of this tribe who really do hate people in the other political tribe, pathologically, and they won't rest until they can dominate and humiliate them at their option. There is no other purpose for such systems. The Chinese government is already using these very techniques to limit the freedoms of sectors in their population who are difficult to control. We already have systems for monitoring and tracking troublemakers. This is NOT that.
The existence of "cancel culture" makes this a monstrous evil that must be strangled in the crib.
A reputation is something that you craft for yourself as a construct of your experiences and behavior. It is wholly yours ...
I have to disagree with this. Reputation has always been part what you do and part what others say about you and what you've done. Gossip, rumor, jealousy, and malice have always been part of reputation. That's why dueling was useful, and why libel and slander laws still are.
Reputation never just depends on you. It is by definition what others think of you, whether you deserve it or not.
You know, there are more options than "all" or "nothing".
It's like guns. They can be used for evil; the potential for conservatives to all be rounded up and shot is there. But guns can also be used for good. The potential for their use in self-defense and in the defense of liberty is also there.
This isn't something the government is doing, although there is a danger of government and corporations working together to get around constitutional protections. We probably need a law against that. Of course, I think we probably need to get rid of half of government, at least.
On the other hand, all this has been happening for a long time. Yelp lets me review restaurants. Nothing forces me to be fair or honest about it. I could give some restaurant a 1-star review just because I know the owner voted for Hilary. We see this a lot in Amazon reviews. People who have obviously not read a book giving it 5 stars or 1 star just because it supports their chosen ideology.
As for government, they already cooperate with private operators to go around constitutional limits, and have done so for a long, long time. Check out the laws for bounty hunters. They can do stuff to bring back a bail-jumper that no cop would get away with.
But all of that depends on private, free-market agreements. Yelp depends on the First Amendment.
So what do you want to get rid of? The free market? The First Amendment?
Sure, pass laws to keep bad actors in government from capitalizing on this, but beyond that, what do you suggest we do?
The existence of "cancel culture" makes this a monstrous evil ...
The real answer, then, is to stamp out cancel culture. Work hard to identify and punish those who participate in cancel culture. Make it personal, public, painful, and prolonged. Cancel them, until they understand they don't want to do that anymore and quit.
The proper response to a bad actor with a cancel stamp is a good actor with a cancel stamp.
I'm not going to disagree, Tom. But until such time as cancel culture no longer exists, then this "social credit" type system will remain a monstrous evil. So get rid of cancel culture (and it's associated evils) and then we can talk about some kind of "social credit" system.
“...bad actor with a cancel stamp is a good actor with a cancel stamp.”
The problem with that analogy is that guns can’t be switched off remotely by the other side. The same system that suppresses you in Google search results and shadowbans your voice on Twitter will suppress your attempts to respond in kind. Only one side will be able to use the technology effectively. That’s the whole point of a social credit system.
So what do you want to get rid of? The free market? The First Amendment?
The "Free Market" is a false god. The US and the several States have been regulating "the market" since....oh, I dunno, why not check out the Whiskey Rebellion for starters....
It has never been a question of 'regulating.' Rather, it is a question of 'to what degree?'
I think we're confusing the Chinese social credit system, which is a single, unified system run by the government, with a number of limited social credit systems run by private parties in the US.
The examples in the article were insurance companies being able to use your own social media posts, bars, Uber, etc.
So, if you told your health insurance company you never smoke, but your current social media accounts are full of pics of you smoking, why shouldn't your insurance company be able to use that? You tried to commit fraud when you lied to them about not smoking.
If you get into a lot of fights at bars, why shouldn't they be able to tag you in an app for bar owners?
If you regularly hassle Uber drivers and get a lot of bad reviews from various Uber drivers, why shouldn't Uber flag you as a problem passenger?
No one is linking all of these different, limited, social credit systems together. None of the US examples in the article shows anyone specifically targeting people for political views or affiliations.
And again, please offer your solutions. What would everyone here do to stop this? What laws do you think we should pass? Or what other actions do you think we should take?
So get rid of cancel culture ...
Well, cancel culture is a private venture, so the solution is also private. You and I and everyone concerned about it need to get out there and do something about it. It's not like we need to wait for an election to roll around.
Dad29, yes, there's all kind of regulation of the market. What regulation would you propose that would deal with this?
The same system that suppresses you in Google search results and shadowbans your voice on Twitter will suppress your attempts to respond in kind.
Sure. Let's break up Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, etc. Maybe what we need is some new trustbusting legislation to end their domination and prevent future actors from amassing such power. I'd probably be up for some of that.
Also, we could probably do something about Google and other corporations helping the Chinese and others develop methods for oppressing their people. Not stop it, per se, but make it pretty painful for them in terms of eligibility for US government contracts, etc.
But I still think the problem is Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, etc., not an app for bar owners, or Uber drivers, etc.
Oops. Tom & Thomas Doubting are both me, for those not keeping track of such things.
“And again, please offer your solutions.”
As the OP said, one approach is balancing government power vs corporate power. Potentially the government could guarantee certain rights vs private attempts to restrict them as well as public ones.
Trust busting might also be an answer.
The danger is that the government is more prone to regulatory capture than to performing healthy roles. Especially here, where the elite in government would love for the elite in tech to use its power to restrain unruly and deplorable citizens.
I have been following this with great interest. I have to ask though, what is “cancel culture?”
Grim, you are right. The OP did present some ideas.
One way of controlling this is to have the government insist that Americans' rights be in no way limited by corporations ...
Well, that sounds good, but it would seem to make contracts problematic.
For example, I have the right to write a book and work with a publisher to get it published, but the publisher will probably ask me to sign a contract saying I won't try to get the same book published by another company. I don't think either of us sees that as a problem, but I would be signing a right away. How would your proposal affect situations like this?
Larry, according to the Urban Dictionary:
Cancel Culture
Cancel Culture is when someone is called out on social media for something they did, or for an opinion, in the present or past that turns society against them and it goes viral ruining that persons career or online popularity.
Celebrities in particular whine about it and call it cyber bullying because it's a form of organic criticism they can't control the narrative of.
Be careful talking politics on your twitch stream or cancel culture is going to end you.
#cancel culture #call out culture #callout culture #call-out culture #canceled.
Well, that sounds good, but it would seem to make contracts problematic.
For example, I have the right to write a book and work with a publisher to get it published, but...
There's a danger of equivocation on both 'suppress' in your counterexample. You have a right to write a book that is a protected Free Speech right. Nobody should be allowed to stop you from doing it, nor to take steps to suppress your publishing it; if it is libelous, you might be called to account after the fact, but you shouldn't be stopped from doing it.
On the other hand, a company that is trying to work with you to publish the book isn't trying to 'suppress' your publication of it in the same way that, say, Google would be trying to suppress its publication if it refused to show search results for the book; or that Twitter might be if it threatened to lock your account if you went through with publishing it. The publisher is assisting your publication of it, not suppressing it. The contract only 'suppresses' publishing with someone else, for a limited period of time, in order to help ensure that profits are made from the publication.
Certain rights should be protected from government, but also from private efforts to suppress them. Free speech is one of these, but not the only one. The 2A right may need such protection: for example, from banks that refuse to do business with you if your store sells guns. This is avoidable in cases where there isn't a monopoly or oligarchy, so you can resort to a competitor. But where there is no effective competition, and in the big tech areas there is not, the fact of the monopoly or oligarchy implies a need for protection similar to that facing a government's capacity to oppress.
It's been done before. Mining company towns owned the public space (literally owned it), and made it a contract issue that you couldn't engage in certain kinds of free speech critical of the company or aimed at organizing a union. The Supreme Court ruled that their contracting rights didn't let them suppress a basic human liberty, and that they would have to accept this as a practical limit on the tremendous power that their disproportionate wealth and organization gave them. That's the kind of thing I have in mind as an ideal; though, again, I have doubts whether the government will do it, I am aware that they could do it.
That's a great explanation. How would it apply to any of the examples in the article, though?
Or, how would it work to keep Twitter or Google in line?
In just the same way. You'd argue that, 'Yes, you may own this platform / virtual space, but you may not use that ownership to circumscribe or otherwise limit Constitutional rights.' That is a coherent principle. The Declaration of Independence states that the only purpose of any government is to uphold inalienable rights in a world hostile to them. If these powers come to oppose the equal exercise of those inalienable rights, they have to be managed like any other danger to those rights.
Well, how would that restrain Google from moving your post from #3 on a results page to #3,000,000?
Or how would it stop Twitter from shadowbanning you?
Is it just that Twitter could not ban people? Google couldn't re-arrange search results?
So, if you thought you were shadowbanned, you could turn them in to the FBI? Or local police? Or just sue them with an expectation of winning if discovery turned up the evidence that they had, in fact, shadowbanned you?
Why couldn’t you just go to civil court like the miners in the company towns did?
Sure. Just wondering what you had in mind.
Here's a USA Today article on the topic. It gives both sides, more or less.
One snippet that sounds like what we're talking about: "Cruz said he'd consider charging 'big tech' with antitrust violations or fraud or could remove the protection from liability provided by a decades-old federal law."
Sounds like a good start.
Sen. Hawley has a very different proposal.
To quote his website on it:
What Senator Hawley’s bill does
* Removes automatic immunity under Section 230 from big tech companies
* Gives big tech companies the ability to earn immunity through external audits
-- Big tech companies would have to prove to the FTC by clear and convincing evidence that their algorithms and content-removal practices are politically neutral
-- The FTC could not certify big tech companies for immunity except by a supermajority vote
-- Big tech companies would be responsible for the cost of conducting audits
-- Big tech companies would have to reapply for immunity every two years
* Preserves existing immunity for small and medium-sized companies
-- The bill applies only to companies with more than 30 million active monthly users in the U.S., more than 300 million active monthly users worldwide, or who have more than $500 million in global annual revenue
Whoever set this up was pretty smart.
If Facebook succeeds, "reputation" becomes whatever they say it is.
If government vs Facebook succceeds, then the FBI/CIA, black hats, and Deep State decides what your "reputation" becomes whenever they say it is, business owner or citizen or whatever.
How exactly are American slaves and peons going to win against that? Strategy is not about fighting people. It's about winning without wasteful struggles.
How does one engineer a situation where the government has the power to destroy corporations or force them into cooperation fascism style? By having the corporations be a stalking horse and do what Google and Facebook are doing. Alphabet too.
It's a good thing acting crazy and using that as a cover in 2008 still worked against Red Flags. Just had to wait until the rest of the population got to a certain level where it could become the ocean of the fishes.
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