That's generally how propaganda works, though.

There were several "social credit systems" that were set up in various provinces. These were mainly attempts to aggregate public records from different departments into one searchable database. It mostly affected business owners since they have the largest public record footprint. The idea was you could look up who owns what business and how many code violations those businesses had.

This triculates into the american rumor mill and comes out as the "social credit score" meme which is fantasitcal projection from our own opaque credit system.

Great example of how "ironic" racism is still racism. It invites actual racists to join and fit in.