Soros at Davos: China's social credit system and Big IT are mortal threat
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
America tends to run so hard from the risk of a Big Brother scenario that they end up smacking into Snow Crash without even realizing it.
Nobody in the US is going to censor your email so that if you say something about Trump it gets magically deleted.
Court cases and mugshots are public information and a matter of transparency. When you murder someone, well, that's part of the deal. That's very different from the government measuring other, minute aspects of your life and making it public to everyone.
If your social media posts are marked private - which is your choice - then for the most part they're not going to be available to arbitrary 3rd parties, moreover, there are definitely social media solutions you can use that don't share anything.
There is an ongoing war over your information mostly for advertising by the way (not hiring) and hopefully some legislation will take care of that, and some dialogue over NSA/Snowden type things. Thankfully, there are actually laws, warrants, judges in the mix.
Surely we have to judge China's actions from a completely different angle, as they have their own history, social system etc. - but the equivalency arguments just don't work.
I think if you tried to text someone a message about Obama, and it was magically deleted by the US government, it would send shivers down your spine, and however political or not you were, you'd be signed up for the first protest/action - as would most of us.
We all have some concerns about our system but it's manageable - what's happening in China is right out of a novel.
Also note that 'it's just begun'. This is possibly only the first tranche.
The de-facto objective may be to leverage tech to it's max - the result is effective total control over everyone's lives.
I don't expect in a US structure my Obama texts would be hidden or deleted.
I think they'd be put on blast by multiple competing systems that are semi-automated to seek out and publicize "undesirable" behavior, and I'd end up receiving death threats from anonymous sources, sanctions from my employer, etc.
The outcomes are different, and I think the jury's out on which one is better. In fact, it's probably a personal preference.
I disagree.
I don't see any future where your gmails or SMSs are going to be sold to arbitrary 3rd parties so your 'future employers' can read them.
Doesn't Google read gmails? Doesn't Google have agreements with 3rd parties related to using information from those gmails? Is it hard to imagine that, as with Facebook, Google making that information directly available?
What FB et. al. do with your content is right in the fine print.
"the employment of academics in the US being in jeopardy if they choose to criticize Israel."
This has nothing to do with state powers monitoring arbitrary communications.
This has to do with specific enterprises practices of hiring discrimination - which is a complex, but totally separate problem.
FaceBook does this sort of thing, except instead of deleting the post, they omit it from feeds, and immediately bury it in the historical archive part of the UI.
Example: A friend of mine’s brother died, and his only updates were about a scone or something. After hearing about the death through other channels, I had to click around for about five minutes (I don’t use Facebook much...) to find the touching post he wrote, and link to the / funeral arrangements.
Either by lies or by harassment or by prison or by murder or by wars against entire countries and their population.
Notable examples:
- Julian Assange.
- Russia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, ...
America Has Been at War 93% of the Time – 222 out of 239 Years – Since 1776 https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-has-been-at-war-93-of-...
When was the last war promoted by Russia or China where hundreds of thousands of people died ?
Madeleine Albright says 500,000 dead Iraqi Children was "worth it" wins Medal of Freedom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omnskeu-puE
And do not forget corruption of information by corporations and secrets services like the FBI and CIA.
Whistleblower Exposes Facebook Censorship Techniques - Mindblowing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UzFTAeEzJ8
SHOCKER: FBI Admits Sabotaging Progressive Politicians As Policy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LYJSb-h9m8
Macron vows to tighten media control because 'fake news threatens democracy' https://www.rt.com/news/414945-macron-france-fake-news-law/
Food libel laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_libel_laws
Typically used by people who have nothing else to say.
I did not write anything to excuse China.
I wrote something that accuses the USA and our western democracies of being far worse than China for the world. Something very relevant regarding the fear mongering against Russia and China promoted by the message in the linked article that also promotes the worldview that the USA and the western democracies are beacons of goodness that must act against Russia and China.
Besides, Russia was invited by the official and elected Syrian president. The USA invaded Syria and promoted terrorism. You should read about what Syrian people think about Russia and the USA in their country.
Example: 'Thank you, Russia, Thank you, Putin' - BBC News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNTgL82D4Xo
I think that's a denial of reality, though. Soviet Russia killed roughly 10 million of its own people [1]. Mao's Great Leap forward killed roughly 45 million people. [2] This isn't some "they mucked around in someone else's backyard--cultural interference!!!" badness. Together, Russia and China killed the same number of people that World War II did (~ 55 million), and they did this to their own subjects. What the U.S. and other Western democracies did was to prevent these horrors from visiting the rest of the world.
What Russia and China had in common, and still do, is that they were, and still are, totalitarian dictatorships. China happens to be the largest, most technologically advanced one we've ever seen. But it still is one. Totalitarian dictatorships are worse for the world. History has taught this much, at least.
You won't hear me claiming that USA and Western democracies are "beacons of goodness", but it's silly to say "Nay! Nay! They're worse!"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/...
Although unrelated but in reply to your message: China is a totalitarian dictatorship but I wonder if more Chinese people support it than US people support Trump or Clinton or any other of the war criminal mass murder US presidents that US democracy had elected in the last century.
I hope that the Green Party or another reasonable party will be elected in the USA in 2020.
Besides: AFAIK it is possible for many to use VPN in China to access the internet privately without censorship and without punishment.
https://www.travelchinacheaper.com/is-it-legal-to-use-a-vpn-...
FYI 'Julian Assange' is wanted for specific crimes, this is normal in any nation - hopefully, if he is arrested, he'll have a chance to defend himself against specific claims. That would be a very, very public trial with a lot of scrutiny.
... and 'Russia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Venezuela' are not 'notable examples' of anything in this context.
It will happen in front of the world with full transparency.
The US could fudge 'findings' from the CIA on Iraq, but they can't make up evidence in court.
Julian Assange would be free if the USA respected journalism. But the USA does not.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/nov/16/julian-assange...
For the USA, this is about about national pride and personal revenge. Trump said that a death sentence is appropriate.
The trial and accusation might be kept secret. Like in Guantanamo and similar places around the world where people are held captive without trial and where torture is normal.
Do you really think the world is worried about Julian Assange because a fair trial is expected ?
Do you really think that he has spent his life in the Ecuadorian embassy since 2012 because a fair trial is expected ?
Do you really think that Ecuador has protected Julian Assange in the embassy since 2012 because a fair trial is expected ?
I guess you are one of the US citizens who promote hate and war against Russia and China and thus want to censor free speech and messages to defend and promote your worldview.
Your words from the first comment I replied to: Nobody in the US is going to censor your email so that if you say something about Trump it gets magically deleted.
Your last comment proves that you are no better and you would love to have my comments deleted or having me banned from HN.
I guess it is also you who downvotes my comments.
You know you have nothing to say against the proofs that I linked.
Pointing at Russia, of all places, as some kind of counter-example is laughable at best.
No one sufficiently educated wants to think the west is somehow superior, but at least when it comes to choosing where you’d prefer to be born, western countries offer huge advantages.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-social...
The article title flat-out says the "social credit score isn't real", and then outlines in a nuanced way exactly how it is real.
Sure, there is plenty of negative rhetoric that surrounds the topic, but at best what I can understand here is that there is no (verified) single aggregate score being leveraged against anyone...?
I'm not sure how this distinction is meaningful?
Not to mention the Drone Strike List,
> ...former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said in a public debate, “We kill people based on metadata.”
> According to multiple reports and leaks, death-by-metadata could be triggered, without even knowing the target’s name, if too many derogatory checks appear on their profile. “Armed military aged males” exhibiting suspicious behavior in the wrong place can become targets, as can someone “seen to be giving out orders.” Such mathematics-based assassinations have come to be known as “signature strikes.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-...
The No Fly list is an anti-terrorism precaution and very controversial.
The Drone Strike List seems bad, but it's a completely different thing. It's a military tactic, not a social credit system.
Because it’s possible to ship a bloom filter to detect banned images without breaking e2e encryption
That’s not the point though. The point is that the expectation moving forward with these platforms is that you police yourself, or the machine learning algorithms will do it for you (and also ban you from mortgages, airplanes, employment, etc, if it has to intervene too frequently).
Facebook does (in a very limited way) this by upranking posts it thinks will boost engagement.
LinkedIn is a bit further down the slippery slope, since it’s able to influence hiring decisions (and is joined to the MS Office 365 cloud, presumably).
Amazon Now had some related screwup recently where it redlined minority neighborhoods in a bunch of cities, since it used spending habits to predict they’d be less profitable.
Facebook (and Twitter, and Patreon, and countless other firms) will block you from posting if you post something that they regard as violating their policy. And "what is against policy" is a fuzzy enough line that "don't use Winnie the Poo pictures to make fun of the effin' President of the country" is a lot clearer than that. You may agree with the policy or not, you may think it's misguided, but WeChat is a private firm, and private firms aren't restricted by anything like the First Amendment. They provide services to you at their pleasure.
He is lying.
> Why dont they round up ten of the worst and deport them and the assets of their companies as a show of good faith?
Why do they need to show good faith? U.S. businesses don't go to China for good faith, they go to make money. China will do whatever it wants, right up to the very edge of what will harm their economic growth.
Most people are too tied to the corporation "benefits" to speak out against the evil Chinese government and its arms Huawei, ZTE and Alibaba. Even though many countries have now banned Huawei (US, Japan, UK, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan), and others are thinking of banning (Canada, Germany, Poland), most aren't openly castigating China with exception of US and Taiwan. And even then, even though the US president is one of the few individuals that is openly confrontational with the Chinese regime, he still sometimes offers a conciliary tone. Even muslim countries like Pakistan and Malaysia that suffer from their religioius brothers imprisoned by the millions, raised a few outbursts but then went silent.
One can also read it at https://web.archive.org/web/20120221185906/http://worldsf.wo... and https://web.archive.org/web/20120229091732/http://worldsf.wo...
Edit: added part 2.
History has taught us nothing.
And yet all we hear about is Google data sharing, Facebook data sharing. And when it comes to problems with that, we hear about a few commercial disputes.
And yet in law the situation is that we are protecting against the second case, with everywhere exceptions for the first case. And while I'm happy for such protections, I feel protections against government data sharing (especially against them sharing mistakes/inaccuracies/out of date info) would have much more positive results.
The solution will be to make this data available to everyone. Not just government and the financially powerful, but everyone.
Some types of activities should remain private, especially when it's practical to do so. Encryption works, so conversations can be private so long as all participants agree. Certain types of medical records should be kept private, and some types of legal records where few people are involved. But general activity that falls outside of the bands that society has deemed worthy of special protection should be considered public.
Travel records? Forget it, that stuff's all over the place. As far as financial records, society has an interest when large sums of money are involved. IMHO we'd be better off if privacy and wealth were inversely correlated.
While Soros acknowledged that such a set-up doesn't yet exist..."
But it does in China, right? I've read many articles about it and I could swear they weren't just future-looking.
And here’s the dark feeling: Facebook profile and use creates a personality profile. Personality profile is valid credit-score data. That data was possibly stolen from FB. If so, your financial credit score (and by axiom social credit score) is now available to anyone who will pay for it.
I’ve been particularly aware of this, because as a self-employed entrepreneur, my credit score has taken a pummeling - I think largely due to erratic cash flow. I see it as a long term threat to risk-taking. Basically, the lesson is clear: by seeking to change things, as entrepreneurs do, you’re not being a good boy or girl.
Furthermore, he is a heart a trader, so people are skeptical of his motives. You can make lots of money in the process of destabilizing a society.
Investigate is one thing but they went way farther than that.
Also liked to put out lots of other news critical about other tech companies anytime there was a snowball of bad Facebook news.
Yes, but what if it's true?
Soros funds many, highly targeted political activities.
It wouldn't be right if people were perpetuating falsehoods about him ... but if he's actively campaigning or supporting an initiative with major $$$, then it's fine if people are informed of that.
Well then maybe they should prove it?
I don't get the question, do you think the critics of Facebook critics are all tied to Soros or something?
You could say "What if it's true" about anything... that doesn't mean anything.
They're not allowed to prove it. It's a scandal that they are even asking the question - someone was fired for it.
I'm not sure what that means. Facebook can surely say "hey the PR firm we hired told the truth and here it is", but as far as I know they've chosen not to.
No, I didn't even suggest that.
But if Soros is actively funding FB criticism or litigation, then exposing that is definitely fair game.
I'm not following.
It seems your idea of what is 'fair game' or what happened and what Facebook's hired PR firm actually did are totally disconnected...
Were it done by a journalist, it would be called 'journalism', for example.
Soros is funding individuals behind the group 'Freedom from Facebook' - it's perfectly reasonable for Facebook to highlight that fact.
Now I don't know all the details behind the game, but exposing the financial agents of those attacking you (or anyone else) is perfectly reasonable.
Vague phrases like 'fair game' and 'what if its true' and lies like 'they're not allowed to prove it' seem to legitimize anything Facebook did without actually talking about WHAT they did and then you drop truthy goalpost moving tidbits here or there about related... and yet not entirely on point as to Facebook's actual actions.
Shorting a company and making public statements bashing it is both legal and common, so the answer there is "uh... nothing?"
If that is in fact what is happening then FB has double duty to call it out.
If Soros has actually done that (I don't know that he did), i.e. take a huge position one day and then come out raging the next, it undermines his credibility entirely - he's effectively 'talking his book' and has a huge conflict of interest.
This is why Private Wealth managers are not supposed to hustle the stocks of the companies their firm's Investment Bankers are advising - it's a conflict of interest. That is actually illegal for example.
Only if those assertions are untrue, I'd say.
> This is why Private Wealth managers are not supposed to hustle the stocks of the companies their firm's Investment Bankers are advising - it's a conflict of interest. That is actually illegal for example.
They have a fiduciary duty, don't they? Soros doesn't have one.
Not necessarily.