Sesame Credit gamifies how good China’s citizens are (Picture: Extra Credits)

In George Orwell’s 1984, the future looked like ‘a boot stamping on a human face – forever’.

And in Brave New World, citizens stayed in line by taking the pleasure drug soma every time they had a deviant thought about the regime.

But according to the makers of this video, China has a more efficient, effective and persuasive means of social control.

They’re talking about a mandatory system where people will be given a score for how good a citizen they are, starting off with how much they buy online, and – controversially – what they buy.


One form of the scheme is being developed in tandem with Alibaba, China’s answer to Amazon, so has lots and lots of information about what everyone is spending their money on.



At the moment ‘Sesame Credit’, rating everyone’s trustworthiness is optional, but by 2020 everyone will have to sign up to something similar.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

MORE: Mother’s obituary she wrote before her death will pull at your heart strings

You could see your friends’ scores (Picture: Extra Credits)

It’s like if your credit rating (kind of an abstract thing you don’t really think about in the UK until you, say, apply for a mortgage) became tied to your Facebook account, and all your friends could see it.

According to the video, you get given a score for how patriotic and obedient a citizen you are. ‘They dredge details from your social media – so if you post details about Tiananmen Square, or share a link about the recent stock market collapse, your Sesame Credit score goes down,’ the video claims.

Users get a better score for buying things like work shoes, local produce or baby nappies (responsible purchases), but lose points for buying unproductive things (for the state at least) like video games.

MORE: World’s worst security guard arrested for stealing $5 million diamonds

There are incentives for having a high score. For example, it becomes easier to get a loan, and you can get discounts or special deals.

For the moment there are no penalties for having a bad score, but in future there are rumours people could be given a slower internet connection, or be restricted in the jobs they can get.

The video claims that where it becomes really insidious is that you could lose points just for having friends with low obedience scores – so you might try to change their behavior… or just stop being friends with them if you you are worried about your own rating.

People could feel they had to self-censor (Picture: Extra Credits)

‘It’s one of the most terrifying tools of authoritarian oppression I’ve ever read about,’ the video claims.

They said governments which tried to control citizens with fear (jail time, threats, executions) risked people rising up against them as they had a of of potential for discontent and unrest.

‘In the past you observed such powers because you were afraid. The world we’re stepping into instead uses positive reinforcement to promote being subservient to the will of the regime. It’s Big Brother’s kinder, gentler hand,’ the video claims – a system to make people enjoy falling into line.



At the moment, early adopters are talking it up, giving it an air of being positive and fun, the video claims. But when people are forced to use the system and begin to censor themselves by being drawn into the ‘gamification’ of society, that’s when it becomes sinister, it claimed.

Earlier this year, the BBC reported a planning document from China’s State Council which said social credit will ‘forge a public opinion environment that trust-keeping is glorious’, warning that the ‘new system will reward those who report acts of breach of trust’.

A Quartz article on the same scheme said Sesame Credit was independent from the government – for now. It quoted Oxford researcher Rogier Creemer, saying: ‘Instead of building out a homegrown social credit system, the Chinese government might simply wait for Ant Financial and its competitors to build out massive pools of user data, and then continue to take that data whenever it wants to.’

Metro.co.uk has approached the Chinese Embassy for a comment.