In 2013, a lawyer was hired to defend a man charged of rape. In the course of the job, he prepared a defense statement. He gave a copy of the statement to the defendant’s family. They thought it was a good idea to post that statement on line, without telling the lawyer. CLIENTS.

Seeing the defense statement, the angry plaintiff sued for defamation, and won. In 2015, the court ordered the lawyer to apologize, so he sent the court a written apology. SorryWatch are sad that we don’t know what it said.

In 2016, the lawyer traveled for work. When he got online to buy a plane ticket home, he was refused. The system said he had been blacklisted by the courts. He was 1,200 miles from home. Tough.

Eventually he managed to buy a ticket by going in person and using his passport as ID.

But what was this about a blacklist? The judicial website had him on a list of “untrustworthy people” because he allegedly hadn’t followed the court order. But he had!

No, it seems the court said that apology was “insincere.” (Now we really wish we knew what it said.)

It took 3 weeks for the court to get back to the lawyer. We don’t know why the court detected insincerity, although possibly the fact that it was dated April 1^st was a factor. They said he should apologize again, so he did. He was taken off the no-fly list. Yay!

Whoops. Soon it turned out that he was on another blacklist, and this one prevented him from applying for a credit card. But don’t worry, it’ll probably all work out after he writes a third apology the court has requested.

SorryWatch has seen cases where crappy apologies enraged courts before. Where they had to be rewritten. (Hello, Pennsylvania!) But the actions taken were judicial, and didn’t bleed into no-fly lists.

How can this happen in our great country? Actually, it happened in the great country of China, where they are installing a “social credit” system. It’s called Sesame Credit. It’s an affiliate of the Alibaba Group. In addition to doing what US credit bureaus do, such as looking at whether you’ve paid your bills or your taxes, it looks at other things. Do you honor your father and mother? Do you follow traffic rules? Do you volunteer for stuff? What are your shopping habits? How reliable – according to the government – is that stuff you post online?

Sesame Credit looks at factors in five categories – Credit History, Fulfillment Capacity, Personal Characteristics, Behavior and Preferences [online], Interpersonal Relationships [your online friends] – and assigns individuals a “citizen score,” a single number.

A score is between 350 for “lowest trustworthiness” and 950 for “highest trustworthiness.”

Wikipedia says, “From 600 up, one can gain privileges, while lower scorers will revoke them. According to current plans, the final score and ranking will be publicly available.” The Chinese government says it will “make trustworthy people benefit everywhere and untrustworthy people restricted everywhere.” What could be bad? Why, if your score is good enough, you’ll be able to fly, apply for loans, make reservations at fancy hotels, compete for scholarships, purchase insurance, get social services, enroll your kids in good schools, work for the government….

If your score’s not good enough, too bad. Should’ve thought of that before you made those unwise purchases and reposted that stupid meme. Don’t come crying to the algorithm.

We are told that the Chinese Supreme Court described Sesame Credit’s ratings as “once untrustworthy, always restricted.”

The lawyer forbidden to fly was Li Xiaolan, hometown Beijing. He’s one of millions harmed in this system. For example, journalist Liu Hu, often in trouble with authorities for blogging about government corruption, has found that he’s not allowed to buy property, fly, take fast trains, or get a loan. What if he apologized? What if he apologized again? And again, and again? So far that hasn’t worked so well for Li Xiaolan.

SorryWatch hates to see apology misused and turned into a tool of ideological suppression. We haven’t seen any of Li Xiaolan’s apologies, but even if they’re two-faced, snide, and rotten to the core, he should still be able to get on a plane. Even if he said “sorry IF the stupid plaintiff thinks they were defamed,” any remedy should be in the judicial system. It should not affect his ability to enroll his kids in school. Why, these measures could create a hereditary low social credit score.

Any system that defines groups of people as untrustworthy/bad (especially if it tags them as permanently untrustworthy/bad), is contrary to the spirit of apology. The ideal of apology is to make things right again. To make amends.

We’re also especially creeped out by the “shopping habits” category. It’s part of an appalling trend for governments to think of people as consumers rather than citizens. (Talking to you, Shrub.) Our jobs? Shut up, buy things, and be sure to pay for them promptly.

We hope it can’t happen here, and we hope it stops happening in China.

 

Thank you to Wendy Grossman, who brought this to SorryWatch’s notice.