cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/536301
The Russia’s State Social University (RSSU) has launched a “social rating” platform that claims to build a person’s “social portrait” with possible applications in future government policies.
Named “We,” the platform promises to determine a user’s comparative “social status” based on a survey that includes questions about income, family status, benefits, creditworthiness, criminal record, lifestyle and state awards, among others.
“The social rating figures don’t affect [a person’s] life, the availability of services or the career trajectory in any way,” RSSU said on the platform’s website. “But who knows what these figures will mean for you in the future?”
Observers on social media compared the platform’s name “We” to the highly influential 1921 dystopian novel of the same name by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin. [The novel “We” describes a world of harmony and conformity within a united totalitarian state. It inspired British author George Orwell to write his own novel, “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, which was published in 1949.]
Let’s see how the Make Russia China campaign goes!
Named “We,” the platform promises to determine a user’s comparative “social status” based on a survey that includes questions about income, family status, benefits, creditworthiness, criminal record, lifestyle and state awards, among others.
Criminal record: putin’s scoreboard of excellency https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3174724/russias-putin-decorates-army-unit-accused-ukraine-war-crimes
How many putinpoints do they get for using a 3 to 13million$ Kh-101 cruise missile to bomb a children’s hospital chemo ward?
approximately the same thing an idf soldier gets for doing the same thing.
Are you saying that Ukrainians are the same as Hamas?
Nah, probably just that idf and the Russian army are both filled with ear criminals.
Ear criminals? Are their covers that bad?
War… Not ear :)
But why do you need to go fetch Israel as the ultimate measure that you need to understand the egregiousness of what russia is doing to Ukraine…when what russia is doing to Ukraine is both the crimes of Israel and hamas combined:
the crime of Israel’s brutality without regard for human life
and
the crime of hamas’s terroristic persistent attempt to destroy their neighbour at the expense of its own people
…there is no comparison here.
The comparison is that they both have large amounts of war criminals. You can compare sections of subjects, you know.
If you’re going to do that, you may as well just jump to american war crimes e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike or hamas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_war_crimes I’m just pointing out that with russia it clear to see that there is an aggressor and a victim. When you throw in Israel-hamas in the conversation, you muddy the waters by comparing it with a 76-year-old war with brutality and a lot of bad decisions on both sides that has turned the leadership on one side into morally-bankrupt fanatics and the leadership on the other side into genocidal fascists.
Israel has neighbours telling them they should disappear every day and those neighbours will not settle for anything less, even after palestinian statehood on the table multiple times, how do you resist that?
On the other hand, nobody wants to make russia disappear, yet russia acts as desperate to destroy Ukraine, a sovereign nation as if they had been the ones invaded. It is much more despicable than hamas and israel.
they have social credit scores in Israel too? Is is netanyahupoints or just putinpoints as well? (better have a universal currency for war crimes, including building military headquarters under hospitals with stolen aid like hamas)
What about personality? You know the thing that actually matters in a person…
I’d say bombing children’s hospitals says a lot about someone’s personality.
Ok. That’s not the majority of the population.
We’ve already got personal wealth as a social credit system pretty much everywhere.
Best explaination of why Putinism as bad as capitalism.
Seems like RSSU is fishing for the government’s money.
It’s probably very badly implemented and doesn’t work as described. In a sense this is good, but my point stands.
I sure hope you’re right on it not working properly, for the common russkies’ sake
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It’s likely both. A compromise between hoping to build something real in the half-assed world that is Russia, and between wish to protest against its half-assed totalitarianism.
so, Facebook?
Russia now has a social credit system just like china and also the united states
You see, in the States, your credit score is an indication of how likely you are to be responsible and comply with the terms of a loan or other bank-related contract. If you have a low score, you don’t get a loan, because the bank sees you as a risk that you will not give their money back. You can still live your life normally, even with a low score, and possibly even rebuild your score over time. Only what you do with money influences your credit score.
In China, the social credit score is an indication of how loyal you are to the regime. A low social credit score, which is earned by disrespecting the regime or not following the silliest of laws, forbids you from using public transport, buying stuff, or getting education.
You can’t miss that contrast.
Indeed, thank you for some lucidity.
While you’re right that there’s a vast difference between a credit score and a social credit score, I would argue that the US credit score system does have a bigger impact on one’s life than just not being able to get a loan. It is used to deny housing and employment and makes purchases more expensive due to higher payback rates. Since so much of our economy is built on consumer spending without the needed growth in wages over the last fifty or so years, some kind of personal debt is needed especially for people with low incomes who have to cover essentials one way or the other. It creates a self-reinforcing spiral that keeps poor people poor.
Things have improved here and there with the CFPB and some anti-discrimination ordinances at the local level, but it’s hardly enough to narrow the effect as you described. Heck, it took us until the Biden administration to propose to ban medical debt from affecting credit scores.
In both cases, these scoring systems are part of a suite of incentives to get people to play by the rules of the power structures that exist: social credit for national authoritarians hierarchies and TransEquiSperiFax for the authority of capitalist hierarchies.
Again, you’re not completely wrong and I don’t want to claim that one system is anywhere close to being as pernicious as the other, but the US system not quite so harmless as you say. Sorry for making this so US-centric but that’s where I have the most perspective.
Thanks for sharing your insight!
And yet you still try to conflate the two… interesting.
Every banking system has some kind of credit score. Social scoring is what’s relatively new and has to keep us on edge because also governments of mostly free societies have a natural interest in such systems.
I see the North Korea visit was pretty useful
sounds like kgb with extra steps
This is literally the plot for a Black Mirror episode.
This is literally the plot for *China.
or, for an example with better writing, a Community episode
From. Nosedive to be specific.
I think for was actually the right word choice there, because Black Mirror in no way came up with the concept
Sure, makes sense from that perspective. 👌
Well this sounds a bit familiar…
Next step is adding a scoring system with penalties for certain behavior and it will be quite similar to the social system that is rolling out in China…
That’s probably the inspiration, but like hell they’ll manage to actually build something as functional.
I wouldn’t underestimate the engineering competence of Russians especially when it comes to autocratic surveillance tools. There are plenty of Russian-built tools and web apps that function quite well - Yandex, VK, etc. The west does not have a monopoly on innovation.
The west does not have a monopoly on innovation.
Nope - but it does look like we have the “monopoly” of being able to call out bullshit openly and not fear falling out of a window. Or being stabbed.
That’s a monopoly I appreciate. Although it’s marginal depending on a number of factors.
Well, until the President decides otherwise, anyway.
Luckily “the West” isn’t just the U.S. - it’s also France, the U.K., Mexico and even Australia…
True! I’ve been too focused on our local politics lately!
I’ve been, too. Even though I’m neither in the US, nor a US citizen… It’s scary right now…
Oh that’s coming. Stay tuned.
Yandex is a good example, VK - I’m not certain of that.
Anyway, what I meant is that such kind of social rating needs to source data from somewhere. That means integration with quite a lot of systems built for the Russian state, which often suck a lot. It’s normal that half the time remote payments for utilities don’t work, for example.
I mean, yeah, they can. But if it’s going to be some nation-wide system for the government, the bureaucracy will practically kill this.
How do you mean remote payments for utilities. Buying something in Russia from a foreign country or the other way around ? Or just remote payments through Russia ?
I meant - submitting water counters’ data and such via their website and paying there. It’s not about payments themselves.
Comparing run of the mill government services with something as advantageous as a social credit app is not apples to apples. It’s not like they assign utility administrators to work for GRU hacking units. The people that build this tool will be highly paid technical experts. And there is no shortage of them in Russia. It’s definitely not 100% but there’s a decent chance they can cobble together a working system that tracks social scores for the vast majority of Russian citizens.
Social scores would logically depend on the data sourced from things working as I described.
But you may be right, of course.
Ah I see what you mean(t). You would have to have working systems with clean-enough data in the first place to integrate with in order to develop a system like this. Not just the expertise to develop it.
They made meow meow beans?
good timing, its my birthday today
Happy Birthday!
Cool.
Cool cool cool.
They’ve taken everything subjective and unspoken about human interaction and reduced it to explicit, objective numbers. I’ve never felt so alive.
Is it called Facebook?
Twitter*
*banned in Russia organization
The social rating figures don’t affect [a person’s] life, the availability of services or the career trajectory in any way
unless you’re gay…
There are no gay people in Russia.
shoots gun
Not anymore
The social rating figures don’t affect [a person’s] life, the availability of services or the career trajectory in any waywink
Then what are they for? Like the government just puts up a leaderboard and leaves it at that.
You can see why all the M-Ls on this site want Russia to win their fascist invasion. Clearly the Revolution lives.
Some .ml fellas can explain that this is good, actually. Oil oligarch kleptocracy with murdering political opponent characteristics is one of the most leftist governments possible, so everything they do is good.
