Doesn’t the wiki say the same thing, that it’s considered a myth? English page instead of chinese: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System
Edit: trying to translate bits and it seems the pages are very different. I assumed different language versions of a page on Wikipedia are more or less the same, but that does not seem to be the case here
It says one source considers it a myth, but specifically points to a lack of an actual score, and then goes on to show how the metrics are actually kept and what they are for. So it sounds like the “myth” is that they don’t actually have a single numerical score for a citizen, but they do have extreme restrictions on their freedom based on what they do with their money and shit.
“There has been a widespread misconception that China operates a nationwide and unitary social credit “score” based on individuals’ behavior, leading to punishments if the score is too low. Media reports in the West have sometimes exaggerated or inaccurately described this concept. In 2019, the central government voiced dissatisfaction with pilot cities experimenting with social credit scores. It issued guidelines clarifying that citizens could not be punished for having low scores, and that punishments should only be limited to legally defined crimes and civil infractions. As a result, pilot cities either discontinued their point-based systems or restricted them to voluntary participation with no major consequences for having low scores. According to a February 2022 report by the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), a social credit “score” is a myth as there is “no score that dictates citizen’s place in society”.”
Exactly, but I found out that if you read the Chinese version (google translated link) then the content is very different.
This not only answers my original question, but also highlights the irony that we trust English Wikipedia pages over social media comments, but not Chinese Wikipedia pages over social media comments.
I was hoping someone with more knowledge about Wikipedia and how language-specific pages are vetted can help figure this one out.