Could you imagine what life would be like if the government compiled all of that information into a giant database and used it to punish those that had engaged in politically-incorrect behavior?  Here in the United States, Internet censorship has escalated dramatically, but over in China the government is cracking down on a much wider array of online and offline activities.  If you fail to make a credit card payment, get into an argument in public or say the wrong thing on social media, you could suddenly find yourself restricted from conducting a whole host of normal economic activities.  The primary marketing slogan for this social credit system is "once discredited, everywhere restricted"…

China's social credit system rates citizens based on their daily behaviour, and this could range from their bank credit to their social media activities.

With a tagline of 'once discredited, everywhere restricted', it vows to punish 'untrustworthy' citizens in as many ways as possible.

This system sounds like something right out of a George Orwell novel, and even entire businesses can be penalized.  In fact, it is being reported that 3.59 million Chinese businesses were added to "the official creditworthiness blacklist" last year.