This is directly on point to our discussion, so I want to respond. 🧵
The mythos of social credit is so pervasive, that when we explain the real system, a common reaction is: “they are social credit deniers" rather than "I have been using the term social credit incorrectly"
In my standard PowerPoint set that I've used for over half a decade now, this is actually where I begin; see the second bullet point.

China has a vast surveillance system. Some tech based, some manpower based. Some legal under both domestic and international law, some not. Image
My primary research focus is criminal procedure.
This has included opportunities to work directly with Chinese police, and even guest lectures at a police academy or two.
I have stories, believe me.
But it doesn't make sense to simply decide that certain things are called 'social credit' because that term resonates with you.
Imagine if someone referred to all police misconduct in the US as "ICE" because they new that agency was notorious and had high name recognition.
Does it matter if you get the name or system right?
Yes, if you are a person interested in stopping abuses, not just taking glee in finding them:
For starters, you don't want to waste resources fighting systems that don't exist, like the universal score.
You also need to be able to clearly articulate the real problems to those you are talking to,
China spends very little energy fighting back against SC criticism, in part because of legit confusion of what anyone is talking about.
The forced assimilation through mass detention and worse in Xinjiang is awful.
Police use of new technologies for surveillance and control (globally) is a rapidly evolving area that includes enormous risks to the core conception of privacy.

Neither has much to do with SC.
On XJ, I have repeatedly argued that the western media's obsession with its own notion of social credit actually delayed coverage of XJ.
In 2014, when SC coverage was getting going, my line to the media was always that SC is something to watch, but they should focus on XJ now.
Nobody ever bit- forgive me if I'm forgetting an exception.

The myth of SC was just too sexy, and frankly, more about us, and thus more interesting to readers.
We discuss the role of new technology in implementing the atrocities in XJ, but there simply isn't any basis to call it SC.

Which is why, in short, those of us who have looked carefully at social credit, are interested in helping clarify what Social Credit means in China.
Nobody is defending China or even Social Credit (I hate the actual system!), just hoping to focus on the proper ills, and identify them clearly, so that maybe we can do something about them. Image

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More from @ChinaLawTransl8

Feb 20
And since I've continued to be asked questions about article 7 of the Intelligence Law, let me do a quick thread 🧵:
1. I don't think it says what you think it does.
2. It doesn't matter anyway.
Article 7 of the Intelligence Law, effective June 2017, provides that all citizens and organizations must support, assist, and cooperate in national intelligence work.
chinalawtranslate.com/en/national-in…
This has frequently been held up as proof that all Chinese citizens and businesses pose a potential espionage risk.
Looking at the law, there's ample reason to believe the law was not intended to create a duty to actively gather or share information.
Again-- doesn't matter.
Read 27 tweets
Jan 25
Recently I've had occasion to look at the National Intelligence Law more carefully, and have found that a lot of people writing about it cite what seems to be a Machine Translation from a Brown University Computer Science Syllabus.
cs.brown.edu/courses/csci18…
Because this PDF looks like a screenshot of the National People's Congress website (cached) a lot of people thought that the English is an NPC translation.
It has been cited in a great number of places including various government hearings. Image
A quick visit to the Wayback machine, however shows that the page only ever held a Chinese version. [Shot a few days after that on the PDF showing similar 'recent stories' in the photo sidebar]
Don't know what would lead to translation of the post body without the sidebars, etc. Image
Read 9 tweets
Jul 27, 2023
To the person who suggested I was just being pedantic and overly critical of a report on overseas policing, you are probably right, but consider these examples of frustratingly selective translation:
Image
Image
If you can't read Chinese, you'd entirely miss that what is being discussed is setting up video conferencing equipment abroad.
Image
Image
Articles like these are the basis for finding new "overseas police stations"
Image
Image
Read 5 tweets
Jun 21, 2023
Really interesting that while I still see lots of interest in Social Credit, it seems to have reached a turning point with less focus on 'universal citizen scoring' and more and more "myth-busting" or "corrective" stories.
Here's one I saw today:
I don't agree with everything I see in any video, but consider what a difference it is from the emblematic 2018 ABC report "Leave no dark corner" "Exposing China's Digital Dystopian Dictatorship"
Given the high level of interest, and that the social credit citizen scoring mythos could be easily dispelled by anyone in China, it's taken far too long for the tide to shift.
Here's the google trends data for this topic in the US. Image
Read 9 tweets
Jan 6, 2023
It's coming on 10 years that I've been writing about the Social Credit System in China, and people still talk as if China really has some sort of generalized morality score that impacts people's lives.
Of course, it's a mythology readily debunked by talking to almost anyone in China.
Still, even people who know better use social credit as a quick punchline.
Read 14 tweets
Nov 15, 2022
Alright, we have a functional initial translation of the draft social credit law up.
It is not the law I expected, but folks still in a 'black mirror' narrative are going to be bored out of their skulls.
chinalawtranslate.com/en/social-cred…
Rather than focus solely on "credit regulation" 信用监管as the provincial regulations largely did, the law attempts to cover all topics under the social credit umbrella - creditworthiness/integrity (诚信)and financial credit reporting (征信).
The result is a grossly unevenly written "franken-law" mismatched in content, style, and purpose-- kind of like the social credit system itself.
Read 12 tweets

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