https://nypost.com/2019/05/18/chinas-new-social-credit-system-turns-orwells-... Imagine calling a friend. Only instead of hearing a ring tone you hear a police siren, and then a voice intoning, “Be careful in your dealings with this person.” [...] Say you arrive at the Beijing airport, intending to catch a flight to Canton 1,200 miles south. The clerk at the ticket counter turns you away because — you guessed it — your social credit score is too low. [...] you are then forced to travel by slow train. What should have been a three-hour flight becomes a 30-hour, stop-and-go nightmare. All because the government has declared you untrustworthy. Perhaps you defaulted on a loan, made the mistake of criticizing some government policy online or just spent too much time playing video games on the internet. All of these actions, and many more, can cause your score to plummet, forcing citizens onto the most dreaded rung on China’s deadbeat caste system, the laolai. [...] The government algorithm will go as far as to install an “embarrassing” ring tone on the phones of laolai, shaming them every time they get a call in public. “Tapping on a person marked on the map reveals their personal information, including their full name, court-case number and the reason they have been labeled untrustworthy. Identity-card numbers and home addresses are also partially shown,” ABC reported. [...] The government claims that its purpose is to enhance trust and social stability by creating a “culture of sincerity” that will “restore social trust.” [...] Individuals can earn points, for example, for reporting those who violate the new restrictions on religious practice, such as Christians who illegally meet to pray in private homes, or the Muslim Uyghurs and Kazakhs in China’s far west whom they spot praying in public, fasting during Ramadan or just growing a beard. [...] Western criticism of the new system has been intense, with Human Rights Watch describing it as “chilling.” In response, Chinese Communist Party publications scoff that Westerners are simply too unsophisticated to understand the wonders of the new system. In the words of China’s Global Times, “The hypothetical theories of the West are based on their ignorance.” The massive social credit system, it goes on to say, is simply “beyond the understanding of Western countries.”