What will be the first U.S. city with a Social Credit System?

[Bandit3 the Worker]

The city of Bologna in Italy has established a Social Credit System modeled after that of the Chinese Communist Party.

The U.S. is headed pell-mell into the same sort of tyranny. A lot of this is because the media admires the Chinese government so much, as a lot of the networks have business interests in China. What will be the first American city with such a system?

My guess would be a rich suburb of a very large city. Perhaps ski towns will follow.

[Person Man]

The city of Bologna in Italy has established a Social Credit System modeled after that of the Chinese Communist Party.

The U.S. is headed pell-mell into the same sort of tyranny. A lot of this is because the media admires the Chinese government so much, as a lot of the networks have business interests in China. What will be the first American city with such a system?

My guess would be a rich suburb of a very large city. Perhaps ski towns will follow.

That’s really an open question. Just look at how Walker talked during the debate. He spoke on how access to necessities should be dependent on having avoided those needs in the first place.

[Aurelius]

Palo Alto

[Person Man]

Palo Alto

Either a left-wing "futurist" city but I can also see someone like Abbot, DeSantis, Lake, or Stitt doing this. It would be billed as "fiscal responsibility" and "personal responsibility".

We are actually closer to this than you think, there is a now a bio-credit system which gauges whether or not you can be prescribed pain medications.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK553147/

[GP270watch]

 More and more people are doing their business or basic services online, so how do you verify that a person is who they say they are and how do you evaluate somebody as a credit risk or behavioral risk, if you've never had any standing relationship with them. This is a really tough problem to solve and our own governments are reconciling how to do this with a patchwork of systems combining government and private companies. ID.ME for example is a private company providing the U.S. government with authentication services for the IRS and Social Security.

[Orwell]

Hopefully soon and hopefully it's widespread, Social Credit is misrepresented by the media, and a lot of the criticism is based on Sinophobic beliefs. The US and much of the west already has social credit systems for financial transactions, it's a credit score with a few more steps.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Hopefully soon and hopefully it's widespread, Social Credit is misrepresented by the media, and a lot of the criticism is based on Sinophobic beliefs. The US and much of the west already has social credit systems for financial transactions, it's a credit score with a few more steps.

Credit scores have only been around since 1989. Back in the 1970s, credit scores were unthinkable.

[Orwell]

Hopefully soon and hopefully it's widespread, Social Credit is misrepresented by the media, and a lot of the criticism is based on Sinophobic beliefs. The US and much of the west already has social credit systems for financial transactions, it's a credit score with a few more steps.

Credit scores have only been around since 1989. Back in the 1970s, credit scores were unthinkable.

Credit scores a good thing, If Im a bank, it wouldn't be good for me to lend money to someone who doesn't pay it back. And with a credit score, it's easier to keep track of people's repayment history and it allows for the average consumer to see how good their credit is.

[Person Man]

Hopefully soon and hopefully it's widespread, Social Credit is misrepresented by the media, and a lot of the criticism is based on Sinophobic beliefs. The US and much of the west already has social credit systems for financial transactions, it's a credit score with a few more steps.

So yeah. Probably not Palo Alto.

[Person Man]

More and more people are doing their business or basic services online, so how do you verify that a person is who they say they are and how do you evaluate somebody as a credit risk or behavioral risk, if you've never had any standing relationship with them. This is a really tough problem to solve and our own governments are reconciling how to do this with a patchwork of systems combining government and private companies. ID.ME for example is a private company providing the U.S. government with authentication services for the IRS and Social Security.

There has to be a point where ordered liberty demands that people take the personal responsibility in their daily affairs in avoiding risky relationships.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Hopefully soon and hopefully it's widespread, Social Credit is misrepresented by the media, and a lot of the criticism is based on Sinophobic beliefs. The US and much of the west already has social credit systems for financial transactions, it's a credit score with a few more steps.

Credit scores have only been around since 1989. Back in the 1970s, credit scores were unthinkable.

Credit scores a good thing, If Im a bank, it wouldn't be good for me to lend money to someone who doesn't pay it back. And with a credit score, it's easier to keep track of people's repayment history and it allows for the average consumer to see how good their credit is.

If credit scores only had limited purposes and uses directly related to what normal people think of when they think of the word "credit", and if there were some iota of privacy regulations regarding them, then they might be a good thing, yes.

[Pres Mike]

Hopefully soon and hopefully it's widespread, Social Credit is misrepresented by the media, and a lot of the criticism is based on Sinophobic beliefs. The US and much of the west already has social credit systems for financial transactions, it's a credit score with a few more steps.

Credit scores have only been around since 1989. Back in the 1970s, credit scores were unthinkable.

Credit scores are actually good. Before credit scores, people were denied loans because of the skin color or gender.

Hell, I heard stories of small town banks only giving loans to people they knew.

Credit scores aren’t perfect by any means. I remember turning 18 and wanting to build my credit. I kept getting denied for credit cards because of “lack of credit”. How was I suppose to build my credit? Catch 22. I finally found a student credit card to start me off with

(Proud to say I’m 23 with a 788 credit score. Perfect record of payments. Student loans completely paid off. So is my auto loan. I have 13 credit cards, for a total of 41k in available credit.)

[GeneralMacArthur]

Your credit score isn't a "social credit system."  It's only informative to people considering lending you money, and it only tells them whether you've paid back money in the past.

My guess is Florida is getting pretty close to doing something like this.  Teachers there already have to fill out ideological questionnaires.  If DeSantis doesn't become president I could easily see him using his second term mandate to institute some kind of system to track people's participation in protests and their ideological statements in public, in classrooms, or on social media, and then using that as a rubric when hiring state employees (especially public school teachers).

[Skill and Chance]

Hopefully soon and hopefully it's widespread, Social Credit is misrepresented by the media, and a lot of the criticism is based on Sinophobic beliefs. The US and much of the west already has social credit systems for financial transactions, it's a credit score with a few more steps.

Credit scores have only been around since 1989. Back in the 1970s, credit scores were unthinkable.

Credit scores are actually good. Before credit scores, people were denied loans because of the skin color or gender.

Hell, I heard stories of small town banks only giving loans to people they knew.

Credit scores aren’t perfect by any means. I remember turning 18 and wanting to build my credit. I kept getting denied for credit cards because of “lack of credit”. How was I suppose to build my credit? Catch 22. I finally found a student credit card to start me off with

(Proud to say I’m 23 with a 788 credit score. Perfect record of payments. Student loans completely paid off. So is my auto loan. I have 13 credit cards, for a total of 41k in available credit.)

Yes, many communities already had a soft social credit system before credit scores became a thing.

[It’s so Joever]

It will be a state actually, probably a blue state with a GOP Governor and legislature once the 2026 elections are basically rigged. Maybe a small one like DE or RI for testing for national implementation.

[Skill and Chance]

Either a uniformly liberal Northern/Western college town introduces "woke points" or a county in the rural South sees it as a backdoor path toward official recognition of Evangelical Christianity.  However, the association with China and libertarians still being mostly on the right makes the former more likely than the latter. 

[GP270watch]

Hopefully soon and hopefully it's widespread, Social Credit is misrepresented by the media, and a lot of the criticism is based on Sinophobic beliefs. The US and much of the west already has social credit systems for financial transactions, it's a credit score with a few more steps.

Credit scores have only been around since 1989. Back in the 1970s, credit scores were unthinkable.

Credit scores are actually good. Before credit scores, people were denied loans because of the skin color or gender.

Hell, I heard stories of small town banks only giving loans to people they knew.

Credit scores aren’t perfect by any means. I remember turning 18 and wanting to build my credit. I kept getting denied for credit cards because of “lack of credit”. How was I suppose to build my credit? Catch 22. I finally found a student credit card to start me off with

(Proud to say I’m 23 with a 788 credit score. Perfect record of payments. Student loans completely paid off. So is my auto loan. I have 13 credit cards, for a total of 41k in available credit.)

 For anybody else wondering about this who is young, start with joining a credit union. If they verify your job and salary they might give you a credit card, they will certainly give you a secured credit card where you put a deposit of money down and that becomes your balance, until they graduate you to an unsecured card and give the deposit back. Credit Unions also offer something called credit builder loans that for some reason they don't advertise. You deposit a sum of money in a CD or savings account and they lend you that same amount. When you pay it off you have a positive credit line and history of paid off loan on your credit file and you get back your matured CD.

[MATTROSE94]

Hopefully soon and hopefully it's widespread, Social Credit is misrepresented by the media, and a lot of the criticism is based on Sinophobic beliefs. The US and much of the west already has social credit systems for financial transactions, it's a credit score with a few more steps.

Credit scores have only been around since 1989. Back in the 1970s, credit scores were unthinkable.

Didn’t know they had credit scores that early. I though they were more like a late 2000s thing. None of the pre-2010 credit reports my parents had made reference to credit scores and the accounts listed were coded differently back then.

[MATTROSE94]

Hopefully soon and hopefully it's widespread, Social Credit is misrepresented by the media, and a lot of the criticism is based on Sinophobic beliefs. The US and much of the west already has social credit systems for financial transactions, it's a credit score with a few more steps.

Credit scores have only been around since 1989. Back in the 1970s, credit scores were unthinkable.

Credit scores are actually good. Before credit scores, people were denied loans because of the skin color or gender.

Hell, I heard stories of small town banks only giving loans to people they knew.

Credit scores aren’t perfect by any means. I remember turning 18 and wanting to build my credit. I kept getting denied for credit cards because of “lack of credit”. How was I suppose to build my credit? Catch 22. I finally found a student credit card to start me off with

(Proud to say I’m 23 with a 788 credit score. Perfect record of payments. Student loans completely paid off. So is my auto loan. I have 13 credit cards, for a total of 41k in available credit.)

I agree that credit scores are not a terrible idea in practice overall. I had some credit problems back in 2017 and 2018 due to financial hardship, but I have rebuilt my credit to the 720s range and have 32k in available credit. I now use credit cards as a debit card replacement and use them to get cash back rewards. Probably my favorite cards are Discover, Chase, American Express, and the Apple Card. I don’t have any Citi, BOA, or Wells Fargo cards and don't use my Capital One card anymore because the rewards aren’t that great and because it is bucketed to a $500 credit limit.