> I've always told people that social credit as used by China was unsed to track dishonest businesses who scammed people and/or other businesses by breaking agreements and not delivering as promised.

To be fair, that's the outcome. But there has been attempts to make more problematic, more intrusive, darker versions of this. They just never worked out for technical or ethical/legal reasons. And they made a nice picture to frame the competing culture, darker than they are.