CCTV all around China
What’s the case with China? What’s happening in China? Are the citizens of China living peacefully or frighteningly? Let’s explore more in this week’s blog!
In China, there are 802 million active internet users, representing 57.7 percent of the population, which in comparison, the United States only has 300 million internet users approximately. Yet, the Chinese government, President Xi Jinping, has made the world wide web not so wide as there are several issues (McCarthy 2018).
The Great Firewall of China
The Great Firewall of China has created barriers that limits the flow and exchange of information, in other words, the foreign websites and news agencies such as Facebook, YouTube, Google, Twitter, Reuters and BBC are barred from entering China’s internet (Maags 2019). Instead, China had their own version of Google, called Baidu, WeChat that is equivalent to Facebook and YouTube that is substituted by Youku. Furthermore, Dennis and Kahn (2019) asserted that the Chinese government restricted nine types of information, comprising post that might disrupt social order, and information that might harm the state’s dignity and interests. Additionally, Maags (2019) stated that public belief likewise influenced subtly by governmental social media accounts or “”50-cent army”, the state-employed bloggers that post positive news and comments about the government online to convince and influence public opinion. Nevertheless, there are Chinese citizens that refuse to believe and blindly follow the official propaganda. They responded using metaphors and code words to condemn the government and the lack of freedom of speech by accessing the internet via virtual private networks (VPNs) to avoid the Great Firewall (Maags 2019; Heaven 2019).
Censorship in China
Censorship in China is another issue faced by the Chinese citizens. Kristof (2019) noted that President Xi Jinping that is anxious and insecure regarding Hong Kong protesters, religion and Winnie-the-Pooh related topic, has lead him to be frightened that real information will penetrate the Chinese echo chamber, undermining his propaganda department’s personality cult around a kind “Uncle Xi”. One example of censorship is the banning of Winnie-the-Pooh at China’s movie theatres and internet, due to commentators that suggested it looks alike with the overweight President Xi (Kristof 2019). According to Kristof (2019), President Xi wanted to censor information in China as well as the discussions and forums in the West these days.
China’s Social Credit System
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOk27I2EBac)
Moving on, the China’s Social Credit System is a ranking system that helps monitor the behavior of its vast population by ranking all of them based on their “social credit” (Ma 2018). According to Ma (2018), the citizens’ score will decrease or increase depending on their behavior. This is a new technology that controls its population in a creepy and terrifying ways, which will be implemented in 2020 to ensure a safety living in China (Matsakis 2019). Each individual is given 1000 points and is consistently observed and rated based on their behavior via the pilot system (Jones 2019). They can earn points by doing good deeds such as helping the needy, donating money and praising the government on social media. In oppose to that, those behave badly such as criticizing the government, smoking in non-smoking zones, and stealing will lead to a decrease in the points. Rewards and privileges for the citizens with good behavior include receiving priority for children’s school admissions and higher opportunity of promotion at workplace. In contrast, the citizens with bad behavior will be punished by prohibiting to book train or flights ticket, public shaming, restriction in getting the best jobs and banning citizen’s children to study in the excellent schools (Ma 2018; Jones 2019).
Is China’s AI technology the answer to the future?
Personally, I think yes. This can be supported by O’Meara (2019) statement as AI technologies promise advances in communications, health care, transport and fundamental breakthrough that can potentially shape China’s future directions and reap the most advantages. For example, AI technology, incorporating huge patient data sets for training software to predict disease that needs research and development has created a distinctive opportunities and great potential workforce for China’s researchers (O’Meara 2019).
Does China’s Social Credit System help the citizens to behave well and ensure a safety living?
I think it helps the citizens to behave well and ensure a safety living, at the same time, the citizens will live frighteningly as well. Implementation of China’s Social Credit System can assist in reducing crime, so citizens can live peacefully. Citizens with good score will be given privilege and rewards. In contrast, it will also permanently affect the next generation that is innocent and this is unfair for them in the future especially when they wanted to enrol in the best school but restricted to do so due to the previous generation’s bad score. Also, imagine Chinese citizens walking on a road with thousands or millions of surveillance cameras tracking them, they have no privacy and completely transparent as all the personal data is controlled by the government and there is limit in freedom of speech on politic issues.
That’s all from me, thanks for reading!
References
Dennis, MA & Kahn, R 2019, Internet: electronic publishing, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 10 April, viewed 24 November 2019, <https://www.britannica.com/technology/Internet/Electronic-publishing>.
Heaven, D 2019, ‘China’s Great Firewall and the war to control the internet’, New Scientist, 12 March, viewed 25 November 2019, <https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24132210-400-chinas-great-firewall-and-the-war-to-control-the-internet/>.
Jones, K 2019, ‘The game of life: visualizing China’s social credit system’, Visual Capitalist, 18 September, viewed 26 November 2019, <https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-game-of-life-visualizing-chinas-social-credit-system/>.
Kristof, N 2019, ‘Let’s not take cues from a country that bans Winnie the Pooh’, The New York Times, <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/opinion/china-censorship.html>.
Ma, A 2018, China has started ranking citizens with a creepy ‘social credit’ system – here’s what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you, Business Insider, 29 October, viewed 26 November 2019, <https://www.businessinsider.my/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4/?r=US&IR=T>.
Maags, C 2019, The Great Firewall of China, Fair Observer, 23 September, viewed 25 November 2019, <https://www.fairobserver.com/region/asia_pacific/great-firewall-china-censorship-chinese-news-today-vpn-china-38018/>.
Matsakis, L 2019, ‘How the west got China’s social credit system wrong’, Wired, 29 July, viewed 26 November 2019, <https://www.wired.com/story/china-social-credit-score-system/>.
McCarthy, N 2018, ‘China now boasts more than 800 million internet users and 98% of them are mobile [infographic]’, Forbes, 23 August, viewed 24 November 2019, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/08/23/china-now-boasts-more-than-800-million-internet-users-and-98-of-them-are-mobile-infographic/#461cd01e7092>.
O’Meara, S 2019, ‘Will China lead to the world in AI by 2030?’, Nature Research, 21 August, viewed 26 November 2019, <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02360-7>.
