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Alright, normally I don't post here, just read here, but this seems worth a thread, so here we go: This was brought to my attention when Extra Credits did an episode on it, and it came rather out of the blue. Checking some sources, it does seem to be a real thing that's happening. The Extra Credits video summarizes it, and you should definitely watch it if you don't want to dig through other sources. Extra Credits Video Other sources, because one isn't enough for this: BBC news News Scientist I would have liked to find more sources, but my google searches kept getting interrupted by ads for american credit score companies. If anyone can find more sources, feel free to post them here. Anyways, for those of you who don't want to check the sources, I'll sum it up: China has partnered with various social media networks in order to create a new system called Sesame Credit. Currently, it's optional, thankfully. The system tracks your posts and links on social media networks,(according to someone from China, it actually DOESN'T do that, though the Extra Credits video says it does) as well as your purchases and other things (and its being going to track more things as time goes by.), and uses them to assign a score to people depending on what they're doing. If you post "good" links, such as links to sites praising the government, you'll get an increased score. Posting "bad" links or making "bad" purchases with your money lowers your score. But that's only the start. The number it gives you isn't just a score. There's already government-mandated benefits in place for having good scores. It lets you reduce paperwork and buy cars easier if you have a good score. Right now, there's no penalties for bad scores. Right now. Another method it uses to track your score isn't what you do-it's what your FRIENDS do. Checking your score or the scores of anyone else online is as easy as a few clicks, and the site even gives you a handy map of all your friends scores. The thing is, having friends who have low scores drags your OWN score down. Meaning, you have to cut those people away from you, at least on social media, if you want a score, as having friends with bad scores will make keeping those good-score benefits you've worked for that much harder. It will be mandatory for the entire population come 2020. Extra Credits explains it all a lot better than I did, so you definitely should watch the video. This feels like something that deserves discussion. China has always maintained an extremely tight control on what its population says and does, and now its taking another step, using incentives and reward systems to keep people in check in a more subtle way. Myself, I don't think its a good thing at all. In fact, this entire thing feels like some crazy sci-fi thing. China is trying to compare this to a credit score, like we have in America, but the two aren't even close. The credit score tracks how well and often you pay your bills, not how "good of a citizen" you are!