Introduction
The rise of the rating society is something relatively new in a society where trusted third parties used to be essential to human interactions
With the boom of the internet and subsequently with the rise of the big data, suddenly rating everything, rating everyone became possible.
Rating can affect humans and companies.
Rating can be made by humans or companies.
Whereas the reality behind the rating society fuelled by big data got exposed to the public by Charlie Brooker’s TV show, Black Mirror, it’s birth dates a few years back.
Building trust in the rating society
At first glance, the main purpose of ratings is great as it is to achieve information transparency regarding a given body’s activities, whether in the field of finance, banking, or sports.
Ratings, when done right, are a great way to interact with strangers and to take into account feedbacks from other persons or firms.
Although those ratings need to be based on objective criteria.
In the economic sector, we can think of the big three credit rating agencies, who assign credit ratings to states or companies. Those agencies rate a debtor's ability to pay back the debt by making timely interest payments and the likelihood of the debtor’s default. They also rate, through mathematical formulas, the creditworthiness of issuers of debt obligations, of debt instruments, and in some cases, of the servicers of the underlying debt :
- Standard & Poor’s
- Moody’s
- Fitch Group
In a global economy and in the financial sector, ratings can help improve financial security, as credit ratings are a tool to evaluate the risks a person poses.
Seen under this light, rating is a tool that helps build trust.
It helps people unknown to each other to interact without the fear of being ripped off.
This is a tool for self-regulation inside online communities, online platforms or marketplaces.
We can think of : - Retail marketplaces like Amazon, where you can rate retailers
- Search engines like Google, where you can rate places, and even administrations
- Teacher rating websites, like RateMyTeacher, where students can rate their professors and classes
- Tourism platforms like Tripadvisor, where you can rate hotels or restaurants
- Transport platforms like Uber, where you can rate the driver and the user
- Or even drug-selling platforms operating on the darknet, like Silkroad.
On those, people or companies are rated, as well as the service they provide. Ratings can sometimes be explained/understood with the help of comments.
The need for checks and balances inside a rating society
Although there is a flip side of the coin when people are using ratings in a social manner.
As much as regulation and trust are important in a society, we cannot forget about the essential checks and balances that need to be maintained to keep the society democratic and fair.
When a business or a person gets rated by another person or company, know or unknown, how can we make sure that this person isn’t the victim of a troll or of a jealous / malicious internet user ?
For example, trolls can be used by companies, states or individuals to push their agenda, to either embellish or denigrate something or someone (i.e. last US elections with multiple pushing against Clinton), which in a rating society fuelled by big data is a problem. Because if a troll is giving false information and those information are at the root of a rating, it can be really damageable to the victim’s reputation.
Can comportements, especially human ones, get reduced to mathematical equations by companies ? Can it be encompassed by algorithms ?
What is the value of subjective rating made by a human ? Are the criteria known ? Are those criteria similar to other persons ?
Rating someone can cause psychological harm to an individual in many way :
It can create anxiety if the grade is low and no feedbacks are given
It can create subconscious self normativity leading to a change of attitude in order to satisfy what we think is the right comportment / action needed to improve our rating
It can create a loss in self-confidence leading to a confinement
The amount of stress being rated could put on a person is huge. To always be thinking about oneself’s worth in terms of metrics, rather than in any redeemable character traits puts so much pressure on the human.
Knowing how ratings can affect individuals, how can we ensure a way to trust each others’ judgments ? Especially when they are hidden behind avatars and can create multiple account to promote the same idea in different manner and under multiples aliases.
In order to prevent people from being defamed or being victim of many (false) accusations from one person with multiple accounts, there needs to be a mechanism that link real people to an online ID so he can rate only once and from past experience.
Like Amazon or Discogs who allows people to rate a seller only if they bought something from him.
Or Uber who allows the driver and user to rate each other only if they entered in a business relation through the app.
Rating systems also need to make sure people were actually in contact or had business together so no one can maliciously underrate a competitor or an enemy.
Rating systems : judge, jury, executioner
Moreover, rating systems usually have a great deal of impact on the person being rated :
- Loss of customers or businesses (Amazon, Tripadvisor or Google ratings and reviews),
- Loss of reputation (Facebook or RateMyTeacher ratings),
- Loss of rights (i.e. to travel in China or to access credit in North America)
Those kinds of impacts can sound like everyone’s living a life-long trial by jury, where the judge, jury, executioner is not - Judge Dredd but every person you encounter or interact with.
On top of being stressful, the rise of a rating society, fuelled by big data, in our everyday live would need some attributes of our judicial system to protect persons from potential abuses which might have a great deal of impact over their lives.
The following mechanisms are needed to provide fair and trusted ratings : - The existence of objective rating criteria
- An explanation of the rating, so the rated one can understand the why and the how
- The right to defend or explain oneself before being rated, as we need to remember that rating is only the point of view of the rater,A possibility to appeal the rating if groundless, unwarranted, unfair, etc.
- A way to redeem oneself after a determined period of time,
- A right to be forgotten, defined by Professor Alessandro Mantelero as the right “determine the development of [one’s] life in an autonomous way, without being perpetually or periodically stigmatized as a consequence of a specific action performed in the past”
- A right of reply, within the meaning of the right to defend oneself against public criticism/rating in the same place where it was published.
Conclusion
To conclude, Public rating in a society can be seen as a form of public judgment made by the community.
Private rating like credit scores, even if only known by a few, can be as damageable as public rating on a person’s life.
On the bright side, rating is a great way of having strangers trade, exchange in a pacified manner, trust each other through the trust granted by others.
It can help secure relations between individuals, after they’ve been vetted by a company, a community.
On the other side, rating if not done correctly can have a great deal of negative impact on individuals and companies.
A balance needs to be found between security, liberty, the right to one’s reputation and individual rights.
To keep a sound rating system in a society where rating is increasingly present, there needs to be checks and balances as well as individuals’ rights need to be preserved by independent administrative authorities, as they would be the most legitimate rating authorities.