U.S. tech companies are building a Chinese-style social credit system

You bring up another tangentially-related point here that represents a form of social scoring: tracking driving. I just got Progressive insurance on my car. They would have knocked about 10% off the rate if I'd agreed to install their app to track my driving. That's a behavioral scoring system.

It's easy to rationalize this by saying that good drivers should pay less than bad drivers, and that it's therefore within their purview. But they're not simply getting a score on how well I drive; they're tracking my every movement 24/7, whether I'm driving or not, with detailed location data.

Right now these systems are voluntary, but it's only a matter of time before we won't even be able to get car insurance without participating in tracking. It's all the same fundamental thing: quantifying our social value.

My point, as it relates to the article, is that what started out as a means of gauging financial creditworthiness is increasingly used as a means to gauge your worth in other aspects of life.

I know you don't mean that, but it sure smells like it.

I lived outside the US for years, and even when I'm in the US, I don't participate in the credit market. I'm completely unable to rent apartments in NYC unless I work out an unofficial sublet arrangement (and get treated like a second class tenant at risk of eviction at all times), and even in the suburbs, it severely limits my apartment choices. The only reason it hasn't hurt me with employers (that I know of) is because I have a solid resume and references.

As for renting: Do you have any examples of cases in which "religion" was used in conjunction with credit scores to successfully argue discrimination? Because I believe it's pretty standard to pull credit checks on renters before they sign a lease, and again, I'm going to (not so) boldly assume the landlord is then using that in their decision making.

I've had credit-history checks done alongside criminal-background checks done for a number of apartments. One of my landlords told me it was a "negative event check," i.e. do you routinely miss payments, rather than an credit-worthiness check before a loan.

Just like I've occasionally had a startup ask me if I have a wife and kids in an interview, I'm sure there exist landlords that use a credit-check less judiciously.

I don't think there is law to forbid agencies to do this.

Note that I'm not supporting the social credit system (or disapproving either), I'm just pointing out that I don't think, unlike other responders here, that this poll finding is automatically void just because it was done in China. How many Americans would have been polled as "somewhat or strongly approving" of the invasion of Iraq in 2003?

Most people are aware of the Chinese tourist stereotype. Perhaps they see this "social credit" system as a way of combating that behavior now that communities are much too global to provide the social pressure they once did.

https://content.next.westlaw.com/5-501-5857

However, I will point out that the liberal Christian denominations are generally dying out these days: the evangelical denominations (who are the ones you're worried about) are the ones adding new members, building "mega-churches", etc., while the "mainline Protestant" denominations that have liberalized themselves a lot to try to stay relevant and get new members are full of elderly people who are literally dying off. Basically, younger people go one of two ways: if they're more liberal, they tend to just abandon religion (like me), but if they're conservative, they instead go to conservative (typically evangelical) churches.

Also, this is a US-centric view. Christians outside the US, esp. in Europe, tend to be far more liberal than in the US. If you go to a random non-Catholic church in western Europe and tell them your views, they'll probably be happy to have you. Even super-Catholic Ireland just legalized abortion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_abortion#cite_note-1

  And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need
  of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to
  call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

  Luke 5:31-32

However the tracking is suspicious. Insurance companies have a bad habit of trying to never pay what they promise out of greed - despite doing so sawing at the branch they sit upon.

As a rule of thumb if the insurance company learns nothing from what it gives away it is probably trustworthy.

Many people buy the insurance they can afford. That means lowest up-front costs or flat out whoever will actually give you a policy. There's not nearly as much choice in the matter as you're making it out to be. Most people don't have the luxury of shopping for the best value plan. So the lowest barrier for picking up an insurance plan isn't who has the best price.

It's who has the lowest standards for what they'll insure. The nature of the game means that those two selling points (price & availability) are mutually exclusive.

[1] https://www.agencynation.com/millennials-independent-agents/

This is the hidden power structure that crosses companies. And this power structure holds and maintains all sorts of biases: alumni, ethnicity, religion, gender, socioeconomic, etc... It works the other way too in terms of some people getting hired who otherwise wouldn't.

In fact, that person holds the relationship with the other person in higher regard than you and will in fact report to the other person that you have been interviewing at another company. Applies to recruiters, managers, HR, you name it.

https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-james...

Lawsuits, screenshots and public quotes.

But what side of the story did you get? The side of the person doing the blackballing or the person being blackballed?

Just as a counter example (there is a link in this thread to exerts from a employment lawsuit against Google), one Google Manager is quoted outright...

"...I don’t care if you are perfect fit or technically excellent or whatever. I will actively not work with you, even to the point where your team or product is impacted by this decision. I’ll communicate why to your manager if it comes up. You’re being blacklisted by people at companies outside of Google,You might not have been aware of this, but people know, people talk. There are always social consequences.”

What is the offense? Apparently holding republican/conservative values.

Really what about the SV party culture ? And if the companies are that professional and only care about your work why does the age bias exist ?

I fear that we have opened the pandora box and now the alternatives are those I mentioned.

> There is more to discrimination law, including "gotchas" like adverse impact.

Not in the UK, unless mandated by law in specific industries.

That said, you only cannot discriminate on the basis of one of those listed above. There are unfortunately many people who will try to discriminate using a rule which indirectly singles out a group (I am intentionally omitting examples, use your imagination).

There are, perhaps more unfortunately, valid reasons to serve one cohort and not another that can have bias along these lines. Once again, the actions of some hateful few can ruin things for the rest of us.

On the other hand, for example in France it is illegal to refuse service unless you have a good reason to.

So in the UK if I walk to a market stall with money in my hand they are free to refuse to sell to me (I suspect the same is true in the US), but in France they would need a 'good reason' to refuse.