Facebook creates communist China-style citizen rating system
Facebook
has implemented a new “trustworthiness score” that judges the
credibility of its users and helps determine whether the content they
post and share or flag as “fake news” is problematic or viable.
The previously-unreported ratings system that has been in place for more than a year just recently came to light. Tessa Lyons, Facebook’s product manager who is in charge of fighting “disinformation,” said the new system creates a score based on, among other things, how people interact with articles that show up in their feeds.
“For example, if someone previously gave us feedback that an article was false and the article was confirmed false by a fact-checker, then we might weight that person’s future false-news feedback more than someone who indiscriminately provides false-news feedback on lots of articles, including ones that end up being rated as true,” Lyons told the Washington Post. “I like to make the joke that, if people only reported things that were false, this job would be so easy! People often report things that they just disagree with.”
Lyons would not go into more detail about other criteria the social media platform uses in creating its “trustworthiness score,” or whether all users are scored and what ways the scores are used, claiming releasing that information would subject the system to gaming by malicious actors.
“Not knowing how [Facebook is] judging us is what makes us uncomfortable,” said Claire Wardle, director of First Draft, a research lab within Harvard’s Kennedy School that focuses on the impact of misinformation and that is a fact-checking partner of Facebook. “But the irony is that they can’t tell us how they are judging us — because if they do, the algorithms that they built will be gamed.”
This brings to mind the citizen “Social Credit System” recently implemented on a “trial basis” in China and set to officially launch in 2020. The scoring system rates the communist country’s citizenry based on their credit history, whether they fulfill contracts and obligations, their personal information, behaviors and preferences and interpersonal relationships. The score based on these criteria can determine whether citizens can shop online, rent a car, travel, get a loan, etc., and will separate people into new social strata.
As Wired writes:
The previously-unreported ratings system that has been in place for more than a year just recently came to light. Tessa Lyons, Facebook’s product manager who is in charge of fighting “disinformation,” said the new system creates a score based on, among other things, how people interact with articles that show up in their feeds.
“For example, if someone previously gave us feedback that an article was false and the article was confirmed false by a fact-checker, then we might weight that person’s future false-news feedback more than someone who indiscriminately provides false-news feedback on lots of articles, including ones that end up being rated as true,” Lyons told the Washington Post. “I like to make the joke that, if people only reported things that were false, this job would be so easy! People often report things that they just disagree with.”
Lyons would not go into more detail about other criteria the social media platform uses in creating its “trustworthiness score,” or whether all users are scored and what ways the scores are used, claiming releasing that information would subject the system to gaming by malicious actors.
“Not knowing how [Facebook is] judging us is what makes us uncomfortable,” said Claire Wardle, director of First Draft, a research lab within Harvard’s Kennedy School that focuses on the impact of misinformation and that is a fact-checking partner of Facebook. “But the irony is that they can’t tell us how they are judging us — because if they do, the algorithms that they built will be gamed.”
This brings to mind the citizen “Social Credit System” recently implemented on a “trial basis” in China and set to officially launch in 2020. The scoring system rates the communist country’s citizenry based on their credit history, whether they fulfill contracts and obligations, their personal information, behaviors and preferences and interpersonal relationships. The score based on these criteria can determine whether citizens can shop online, rent a car, travel, get a loan, etc., and will separate people into new social strata.
As Wired writes:
Currently, Sesame Credit does not directly penalise (sic) people for being “untrustworthy” – it’s more effective to lock people in with treats for good behaviour (sic). But Hu Tao, Sesame Credit’s chief manager, warns people that the system is designed so that “untrustworthy people can’t rent a car, can’t borrow money or even can’t find a job”. She has even disclosed that Sesame Credit has approached China’s Education Bureau about sharing a list of its students who cheated on national examinations, in order to make them pay into the future for their dishonesty.Given that Facebook is simply another arm of the government, we can’t help but wonder if this is the laying of the groundwork for a China-style citizen ratings system in the U.S. It’s common for the elites to send up trail balloons to see how ideas and programs will be received. And as Bob Livingston so often points out, the elites use a process of gradualism to shape thought and slowly implement liberty-stealing programs and processes.
Penalties are set to change dramatically when the government system becomes mandatory in 2020. Indeed, on September 25, 2016, the State Council General Office updated its policy entitled “Warning and Punishment Mechanisms for Persons Subject to Enforcement for Trust-Breaking”. The overriding principle is simple: “If trust is broken in one place, restrictions are imposed everywhere,” the policy document states.
For instance, people with low ratings will have slower internet speeds; restricted access to restaurants, nightclubs or golf courses; and the removal of the right to travel freely abroad with, I quote, “restrictive control on consumption within holiday areas or travel businesses”. Scores will influence a person’s rental applications, their ability to get insurance or a loan and even social-security benefits. Citizens with low scores will not be hired by certain employers and will be forbidden from obtaining some jobs, including in the civil service, journalism and legal fields, where of course you must be deemed trustworthy. Low-rating citizens will also be restricted when it comes to enrolling themselves or their children in high-paying private schools. I am not fabricating this list of punishments. It’s the reality Chinese citizens will face. As the government document states, the social credit system will “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step”.
No comments:
Post a Comment