【Dead Again】

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BLACK MIRROR SEASON 3

The Dead Againnew season of Black Mirror is out and, just like the others, it's terrifyingly, absurdly real.

Maybe tooreal.

Six new episodes, each one with a different theme, prove the show can be almost anything it wants to be - so long as there's a technological twist in the tale.

And, judging from some recent news stories, the show has got it right.

Nosedive

First, let's take China's real-life ambitions to create an elaborate "social credit" system to rate citizens' trustworthiness and build a "harmonious socialist society".

A high-level policy document released in September outlined plans to enroll everyone in China into a vast national database by 2020, which will list fiscal and government information including minor traffic violations. Citizens will be given a single number ranking, according to BBC.

Eight companies who are issuing these "social credit" scores to people are currently being monitored by the government. Companies include Sesame Credit, the financial wing of Alibaba (400 million users) and Baihe, China's premier matchmaking service, which will "promote clients with good credit scores, giving them prominent spots on the company's website".

In the plans, social credit will "forge a public opinion environment that trust-keeping is glorious" warning that the "new system will reward those who report acts of breach of trust".

Put in simpler words: the big data-based ranking could affect your social mobility, deprive you of privileges, determine whether you can get a loan or put your children in the best schools.

Remind you of something? The system is uncannily similar to the one in "Nosedive", the first episode in Black Mirror's third season.

In the pastel-colored episode, Lacie Pound is a woman who lives in a society where everyone gives each other a ranking out of five stars. Getting a high approval rating affects everything, from getting the fancy new apartment you always wanted to renting a car.

Charlie Brooker, the creator of Black Mirror, has even admitted in an interview that China's system is "incredibly sinister".

Shut up and dance

News this week from the real world that a 26-year-old was blackmailed for naked pictures by the man who hacked her iCloud, also bears a striking resemblance to another episode ofBlack Mirror.

Taruna Aswani, who was born in India but currently lives in Maryland in the US, received an email from "Kevin John", who was unknown to her. He claimed to have hacked her account and obtained nude pictures and a video. The subject line was just a sinister "let's start".

"All I am saying is if you want me to keep quiet on this and don't let the world know then you have to excite me."I will give you 24 hours to respond and 48 hours to send me [the images]."I have access to all your friends … family and co-workers."

The subject is eerily similar to the Black Mirrorepisode "Shut up and Dance', where a secret group of hackers install malware on laptops in order to blackmail people with what they find.

However, the similarities stop there. Taruna in Maryland immediately filed a complaint to the FBI and wrote a public post on Facebook alerting family and friends to the threats.

"As embarrassing as the videos may be (they were sent to my boyfriend at the time) I choose to stand up to this man," she said.

"I do this so that other women may take a lesson to stand up to bullies … and may get the confidence to stand up as well, in case he is known to us and is targeting all of us, but we're either too scared, ashamed or clueless in how to manage or handle such situations."

In the Black Mirror episode, the terrified teenager doesn't report the hackers to police and gets entangled in an elaborate, perverse blackmailing scheme which ends with a sympathy-shifting twist that nobody expected.

Playtest

This video of a guy watching the horror movie Catatonicin VR is quite creepy -- especially if you watched Black Mirror's episode 2, "Playtest".

IRL there are already several concerns surrounding the future of immersive entertainment, particularly when it comes to horror movies. The opportunity to terrify gamers or movie-watchers has many people worried that things could go too far.

In the Black Mirrorepisode "Playtest," a young American named Cooper flees home, trots around the world, lands in London, finds a tech journalist on Tinder and finally is forced to take a 'weird' job when his credit card stops working. In fact, the word 'weird' might be an understatement.

The job is for SaitoGem, a horror publisher that is experimenting with a new immersive technology: an implant that works as the ultimate augmented reality device with the ability to alter the gamer's perception without wires or glasses.

Cooper is led to play a new horror game that creates terrifying experiences based on the gamer's own fears.

Thankfully it's unlikely that things will reach those levels of scary IRL. But we can still imagine a future where VR frightens the s*** out of gamers and movie-goers around the world.