When some people do it it's "empowering the underbanked" or "empowering an underserved market". When China does it, it's "pushing ethical boundaries".
https://www.forbes.com/sites/audreymurrell/2018/07/31/pushin...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/audreymurrell/2018/07/31/pushin...
It's not. It's because of scale. If a similar system was being implemented in the US the shitstorm would be even bigger.
Tala is a whole other story, it is small scale and not mandatory. As it grows to the point where using it is expected or required it will face the same exact criticism.
I get what you're saying, but I still sense some cognitive dissonance. If the US lets some hip start up build a social credit score and then just heavily buys into it, I think it will face less pushback than if they use a scary federal contractor to build the same score. I get the feeling that people think governments are intentionally evil.