Emily Turnage
Gamification of Social Media
For this week’s blog post, I’d like to dive into a little more detail about Sesame Credit, China’s new “social credit rating” designed to reward people it considers good citizens. Sesame Credit analyzes everything about a person’s social life - from the purchases they make through Alibaba, to the posts and links they share on social media, even going as far as to factor in a user’s friends’ scores based on all of their social media presence. Being a good citizen gets one benefits, while being a poor citizen (using the word “democracy” repeatedly, for example, or sharing information on Tiananmen Square) will eventually reap negative consequences, such as slower internet speeds. This sort of social monitoring is exactly the sort of terrifying, all-encompassing Big Brother movement that we’ve been terrified of - and especially so because of how Sesame Credit goes about its suppression of opposition.
See, the terrifying beauty of Sesame Credit lies in its ability to monitor your friends’ activities and attribute them to your own. By not being a “good, obedient citizen” in China, one risks being ostracized and made a pariah by people they called friends, simply because being friends with them could cause their social credit score to go down, and prevent them from getting certain benefits, like getting government paperwork signed off faster, or even getting a discount at a hotel, as one couple spoke about in a BBC article on Sesame Credit. By weaponizing gamification and using it against disobedient citizens, Alibaba and Sesame Credit have turned everyone in China into Big Brother, by selectively rewarding them for cutting association with those known to speak out against the Chinese government’s regime. And it horrifies me to think that companies like Yahoo are partnered with Alibaba, in effect supporting the giant company’s totalitarian regime over the social lives of its citizens - because make no mistake, though Sesame Credit is optional now, the plan is for it to be mandatory by 2020 for all Chinese citizens. That we can just sit by and allow this sort of monitoring is awful; but, because Alibaba is Chinese owned and maintained, there is little the US can do besides encouraging its own companies to drop their partnerships with it, creating a clear stance that the US will not stand for these awful human rights violations - but then, China seems to be no stranger to violating its country’s citizens’ rights.
5 Comments
Adrienne Horca
3/16/2017 04:22:43 pm
Emily,
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Fernando Madrigal
3/17/2017 11:35:14 pm
This is an interesting blog. I did not know what Sesame Credit was since I never herd of it before. It is ashamed that China has developed this method by judging their own citizens and causing a divide from the "good" or "bad". What surprises me the most is that a person with good Sesame Credit can decline if they're friends with people with bad Sesame Credit.
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Noemi Cuin
3/18/2017 04:02:22 pm
This is a really creepy and unfair way to treat people. It makes sure that no one has a free opinion and that every post on social media is basically boring. What makes it worse is that people with "bad ratings" will be neglected despite them actually being good people. A good person could post content that doesn't follow the "guidelines" but it doesn't mean it's completely horrible. This also reminded me of an episode of Black Mirror; it follows this same social ranking system. It's season 3 episode 1 if you want to check it out.
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Karina Pizano
3/30/2017 09:23:30 pm
This is super scary! I would not like to be a citizen in china. We are always talking about surveillance and privacy and now I see that another country has done exactly what we are afraid of. Its concerning to know that a big company in the U.S, yahoo, is partnered up with these unfair and cruel companies. I think in the ling run the people who work in these companies or run these companies will also loose there privacy. After all the government wants to know all. But great post! I will delete my Yahoo account.
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Luigi
5/17/2017 06:49:26 pm
Interesting blog, and an even more interesting subject. However I think it should be explored that we really don't understand Chinese culture. And unless we do we are not well equipped to decide if this is a good or bad idea. This is an ancient culture that is built on ideas and customs that we cannot easily relate to. I am not suggesting this is a good thing, just suggesting we learn more before judging it.
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AuthorI am a senior studying Communication Design, with an emphasis in Game Design. I like playing video games, writing, and yelling too loudly about things I care about. Archives
May 2017
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