Black Mirror’s ‘Nosedive’ Episode Is Real In China

Black Mirror’s third season had a very powerful first episode, ‘Nosedive’.
In this episode the world had a rating system.
Everybody could be rated, based on their looks, behaviour, opinions and choices they made.

People could give each other 1-5 stars and you could of course also downgrade to a lower rate.

As crazy as this sounds and even though most of Black Mirror’s episodes are far from the truth, this episode comes creepily close to the truth in China.

So far, it has only been tried in some local areas since being proposed in 2014, but they expect to have the plan fully up and running in 2020.

All citizens (with an ID) and businesses are given a ranking and the number will go up when the do good deeds but can also go down due to bad behaviour.

An example of serious this system is, especially when the ranking is low, is a man called Xie Wen. His company lost a lawsuit ad didn’t pay up after that and Xie Wen ended up on the government’s blacklist.

He couldn’t apply for a loan, board a plane or book a seat on a high-speed train and was banned from things like buying property, snapping up holiday packages or even enrolling a child into private education.

The blacklist does not just feature Xie Wen, but more than nine million out of the country’s 1.4 billion people.

If you want to get an idea of how the rating system works, check out this scene from Black Mirror’s episode below.