Blacklists and Redlists in the Chinese Social Credit System

Engelmann, Severin; Chen, Mo; Dang, Lorenz; Großklags, Jens

doi:10.1145/3461702.3462535

Cited by 19 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Two municipal level websites for both projects were also analyzed: Tianjin Credit (天津信用), and Tianjin Civilization Net (天津文明网). Tianjin was selected as previous studies have shown that Tianjin Credit website has established dedicated Redlists for exemplary moral and political behaviors alongside those that reward regular compliance with existing laws and regulations (Engelmann et al, 2021: 83). Several Tianjin city districts have also been consecutive recipients of the NCCA (Tianjin Civilization Net, n.d.).…”

Section: Websitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Civilized cities or social credit? Overlap and tension between emergent governance infrastructures in China

Trauth-Goik

2023

Global Media and China

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Foreign imaginaries of surveillance and informatization in China are commonly connected to notions of omnipresence, advanced technology, and coherent governance. In reality, however, the Chinese government’s efforts at the building of a digital society are permeated by confusion over the meaning of central edicts, interdepartmental and regional fragmentation, and overlap between different digital governance systems. This article interrogates the connection between two emerging governance infrastructures embedded in the Chinese Party-state’s latest informatization drive, the “National Civilized Cities Award” (NCCA) and the “Social Credit System Project” (SCSP) through a mixed methods approach. It combines data from an analysis of a recent NCCA assessment system government work manual, project websites, and findings from thirty qualitative video interviews with residents from twenty different cities in China to demonstrate that overlap between these projects is clear in terms of 1) criteria and indices measuring project development; 2) promoted virtues and individual behaviors; and 3) data sharing between systems. Local governments charged with the design and implementation of these initiatives frequently conflate their targets and objectives, prompting occasional reprimand from higher-level authorities. Public confusion about the meaning and purpose of both the NCCA and SCSP has meanwhile accompanied haphazard system development, demonstrating that the path towards a “digital society” in China is fraught and far from uncontested.

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Section: Websitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Civilized cities or social credit? Overlap and tension between emergent governance infrastructures in China

Trauth-Goik

2023

Global Media and China

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“…Amongst various big data practices, quite a few are designated as smart because they are future-oriented, thereby enabling a speculative practice of algorithmic smartmentality (Leszczynski, 2016). For urban China, this speculative nature is manifested as ‘state surveillance’, such as the social credit system as a vehicle for enforcing regulations and enhancing social solidarity (Engelmann et al, 2021; Liang et al, 2018). Although critical challenges at the municipal levels – such as low data quality and siloed databases (Ahmed, 2018) and the diversity, flexibility and comprehensiveness of social credits (Engelmann et al, 2021) – are yet to be addressed, the initiation of the social credit system indicates government’s will to govern cities through big data.…”

Section: Smartmentality For Contemporary Smart Urbanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For urban China, this speculative nature is manifested as ‘state surveillance’, such as the social credit system as a vehicle for enforcing regulations and enhancing social solidarity (Engelmann et al, 2021; Liang et al, 2018). Although critical challenges at the municipal levels – such as low data quality and siloed databases (Ahmed, 2018) and the diversity, flexibility and comprehensiveness of social credits (Engelmann et al, 2021) – are yet to be addressed, the initiation of the social credit system indicates government’s will to govern cities through big data. However, this practice alike may spark off issues relating to cities’ underlying proclivity to technologically solutionist approaches – that is, seeing technology as a panacea to urban issues (Morozov, 2013) – on the one hand, and uninterrupted citizenship – that is, the ways in which citizens are engaged in producing smart urbanism and are technologically locked in to platform urbanism (Hemment and Townsend, 2013; Kitchin, 2014) – on the other.…”

Section: Smartmentality For Contemporary Smart Urbanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

State-steered smartmentality in Chinese smart urbanism

2022

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This study explores the socio-political shaping of Chinese smart urbanism by examining the power relations between the government (national and municipal), private firms and citizens embedded in smartmentality. Our exploration begins with teasing out key analytical standpoints of Alberto Vanolo’s concept of smartmentality applied in neoliberal practices of smart urbanism. Through this analytical framework, we conceptualise Chinafied smartmentality and illustrate how it is actually playing out in China by undertaking documentary research and in-depth interviews from an inductive case study of the Smart Transportation System (STS) in the city of Shijiazhuang. We observe that the idea of Chinafication extends smartmentality with a focus on the power dynamic. We further argue that this Chinafied smartmentality implies uncritical technological solutionism that is state-steered in nature, and citizen participation in digital platforms that is performed with limited roles and power for inclusion. The article concludes by calling for future research on the critical examination of value co-creation for shaping a truly citizen-centric mode of governance in Chinese smart urbanism.

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“…Liu (2019), for instance, analyzes and distinguishes the multiple SCSs at different levels and fields in Chinese society, including the nationwide blacklists and redlists developed by several central governmental agencies, the SCS pilots implemented by municipal governments in different cities and provinces targeting businesses, organizations, and/or individuals, and commercial SCSs like Zhima Credit1 (also known as Sesame Credit). Many studies have explored SCSs designed by the central and local governments for rating business enterprises and business organizations via redlists and blacklists (Engelmann et al, 2021; Lin & Milhaupt, 2021). However, SCSs developed for individuals (e.g., ordinary citizens) have received much less attention from scholars.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accepting but not engaging with it: Digital participation in local government‐run social credit systems in China

Kostka

2022

Policy & Internet

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Over the past decade, China's central and municipal governments have consistently supported the development of social credit systems (SCSs). While research has highlighted the Chinese public's high approval and backing of SCSs, their engagement with these digital projects has not been fully explored. Based on 44 semi‐structured interviews, our research examines Chinese citizens' digital participation in government‐run SCSs at the local level. Our findings suggest that, despite perceiving SCSs as accepting and positive, most interviewees do not actively engage with local government‐run SCSs. Multiple factors can explain the gap between the high acceptance and low participation rates, including a lack of awareness regarding local SCSs, a perception that registering and maintaining a decent credit score requires major effort, various concerns involving data privacy and safety, algorithm accuracy and fairness, potential risks, unappealing benefits offered by SCSs, and the voluntary aspect of participating in local SCSs. Our research adds to the existing literature on digital governance in authoritarian contexts by explaining why Chinese citizens do not necessarily engage with state‐promoted digital projects.

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Blacklists and Redlists in the Chinese Social Credit System

Cited by 19 publications

References 20 publications

Civilized cities or social credit? Overlap and tension between emergent governance infrastructures in China

Civilized cities or social credit? Overlap and tension between emergent governance infrastructures in China

State-steered smartmentality in Chinese smart urbanism

Accepting but not engaging with it: Digital participation in local government‐run social credit systems in China

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