“Social credit” is a bland phrase in English. What does it even mean? The slight rise in status you experience after throwing a party?
In China, however, the term is similarly vague, though it refers to a ranking system used by officialdom to reward or punish citizens based on their behavior. It is not a single score, but an ad hoc, varying assemblage of carrots and sticks the totalitarian government deploys to keep 1.4 billion citizens in line.
In 2018, then Vice President Mike Pence warned about China’s social credit system.
“China has built an unparalleled surveillance state, and it’s growing more expansive and intrusive,” Pence said. “By 2020, China’s rulers aim to implement an Orwellian system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life — the so-called ‘social credit score.’ In the words of that program’s official blueprint, it will ‘allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven, while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.’”
Be a good party member, don’t cause trouble, and your score rises. You can rent a bike without a deposit, or get higher placement in a dating app.
However, if you complain to co-workers, post snarky comments online about official policies or, Mao forbid, attend a protest, your social mobility score will plummet. Suddenly, you have trouble boarding a train or airplane.
That echoed ominously with one aspect of the ongoing ICE clashes in Minneapolis.
One protester, Nicole Cleland, said in a declaration supporting a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, that ICE agents, whom she did not know, nevertheless called her by name, thanks to facial recognition programs they use. Three days later, she received an email from Homeland Security, saying her membership in Global Entry, designed to speed fliers through TSA airport checkpoints, had been suspended.
“I travel frequently,” wrote Cleland, a director at Target Co. “I am concerned that I may experience other complications while traveling stemming simply from the exercise of my rights.”
Cleland, 56, had not committed a crime and didn’t pose a threat beyond showing up and exercising her Constitutionally protected right to protest a policy which she, and the majority of Americans, find cruel and destructive. President Donald Trump said he was going to go after murderers and rapists. He did not promise to send masked thugs rampaging through Home Depot parking lots, accosting American citizens trying to pick up a cordless drill.
With cherished freedoms fluttering to earth like maple leaves in a November gale, it might seem odd to focus on this particular bit of oppression. But as horrifying as it is to be shot 10 times for recording something on your phone, most of the general public does not attend protests, so their risk of being murdered by ICE is still low.
However, they might post something on Facebook. Or send a text to a colleague. With technology, the ability to oppress increases exponentially. China has an estimated 500 million public surveillance cameras, one for every three people. And while those were of limited use when government drudges had to monitor them, facial recognition software changes all that.
In that sense, ICE masking up might be an indication of where we’re all going. You might someday don a kerchief over your face to walk down the street, after every Ring camera feeds directly into some vast central database. You wouldn’t want your driver’s license revoked because you strolled past the wrong house.
None of us need another reason to be anxious. But we can’t lose track of surveillance developments. We have seen how tech billionaires line up to kiss Trump’s ring. Elon Musk is only the start. He essentially bought unlimited access to the United States government for $274 million, went in and stole all your data under the guise of cutting waste, and then fled. When I heard that he is stopping the manufacture of the most popular Tesla models, I was not surprised. Why bother making a physical product when you are sitting on a data gold mine?
So sure, today, it’s a few protesters inconvenienced at the airport. But the writing is on the wall. Government is traditionally a counterbalance to big business, not its handmaiden. I don’t know where our Democratic leaders are. But they should be standing on chairs, beating garbage can lids together, screaming about this. We need a government that works. For us.
Maybe they’ll want to point out that a course change is essential, before you show up at O’Hare to take your family to Cancun in 2031, and discover TSA won’t let you through security because of a meme about the Epstein files you shared on Bluesky in 2026. Think it can’t happen? It already is.
