Chinese government has begun stripping rights from those who piss it off -- and it's just going to get worse

Chinese investigative journalist Liu Hu found out he was blacklisted when he tried to buy a flight to Guangzhou last year. After several airlines rejected his booking, Liu discovered that China’s government was keeping a list of “untrustworthy” people who were banned from flying—and that he was on it.

Liu had fallen afoul of Beijing in 2016 after he made a series of claims on social media accusing officials of corruption. He was forced to pay a fine and apologize, and when he did so he thought the case was closed. However, it wasn’t: Not only has Liu been barred from flying, but his new status as a “dishonest person” comes alongside a slew of other restrictions.

“My life [is] very inconvenient,” he told Newsweek. “I’m also not allowed to purchase property, I can’t send my daughter to a good school or travel on high-speed trains.”

Liu was surprised to find he had been caught up in China’s so-called social credit system, a scheme first proposed in 2014, when Beijing announced that it would use data to monitor and rank the behavior of its citizens, rewarding those that score high and punishing those that score low. Under the system, the elite will gain access to better social privileges and those who rank closer to the bottom will effectively be second-class citizens. By 2020, the scheme is set to become mandatory for all 1.4 billion of China’s citizens.

Ben Mothafuckin' Reilly wrote:

Chinese investigative journalist Liu Hu found out he was blacklisted when he tried to buy a flight to Guangzhou last year. After several airlines rejected his booking, Liu discovered that China’s government was keeping a list of “untrustworthy” people who were banned from flying—and that he was on it.

Liu had fallen afoul of Beijing in 2016 after he made a series of claims on social media accusing officials of corruption. He was forced to pay a fine and apologize, and when he did so he thought the case was closed. However, it wasn’t: Not only has Liu been barred from flying, but his new status as a “dishonest person” comes alongside a slew of other restrictions.

“My life [is] very inconvenient,” he told Newsweek. “I’m also not allowed to purchase property, I can’t send my daughter to a good school or travel on high-speed trains.”

Liu was surprised to find he had been caught up in China’s so-called social credit system, a scheme first proposed in 2014, when Beijing announced that it would use data to monitor and rank the behavior of its citizens, rewarding those that score high and punishing those that score low. Under the system, the elite will gain access to better social privileges and those who rank closer to the bottom will effectively be second-class citizens. By 2020, the scheme is set to become mandatory for all 1.4 billion of China’s citizens.

http://www.newsweek.com/china-social-credit-system-906865

That just sounds horrifying. Maybe a step toward becoming a massive, powerful version of North Korea?

Lord Foul wrote:agreed...see my last line in the above post

Victor wrote:ONLY a left wing crap hole could turn such a scheme into a tool of repression..........

Lord Foul wrote:
agreed...see my last line in the above post