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Episode 871: Blacklisted In China

NPR

China is trying a bold experiment. The government wants to make it easier for people to trust each other. They are creating something known as a social credit score.

This would be a nationwide system, similar to an American credit score, but that stretches deep into all kinds of areas of public and private life. It involves tracking, monitoring and sometimes shaming people who break rules and default on debts.

Today on the show, our friends at The Indicator explore China's new social credit system; we meet a man trapped on a blacklist, prevented from traveling freely, and he finds his picture looming over him on a billboard of shame. Also, we learn why many citizens like this system. They're grateful for how it improves daily life in small ways.

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Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.
Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.
Echo Wang