megopie's claims seem to be consistent with the Wikipedia article (which mostly cites this Singaporean book), and my experience of it wasn't directly state-run either; we used the one from Alipay, and it was mainly about availability of and restriction against services.

While the website for that docu seems to be a bit too alarmist for my red flags, the trailer looks pretty good, so I think I'll give it a try sometimes. Note that my family has no dealings with human rights, so my account may not be accurate.

That’s not about the social credit system though, that’s about the general censorship and surveillance apparatus. Which although robust and invasive is quite fragmented, there is no central database. local branches of law enforcement or internal intelligence or a million other parts of china’s own alphabet soup, manage, collect and use surveillance data, some terrifyingly effectively, some pathetically. Some not at all.

China is a big country with a lot of tasks being delegated to lower authorities, (and delegated from them to even lower authorities). Anytime I see someone talk as if the Chinese government is a monolithic entity it makes me want to pull my hair out. 90% of the time when someone talks about some new law in Beijing being created, they’re misrepresenting the reality, which is generally that the central government has directed provincial and local governments to pass their own laws and implement their own policies to address what ever Beijing has talked about.

For references about social credit in particular here you go:

https://jamestown.org/program/far-from-a-panopticon-social-credit-focuses-on-legal-violations/

https://logicmag.io/china/the-messy-truth-about-social-credit/