China Cracks Down On Sexting
How do you solve the problem of cell phone users who send sexually explicit text messages? Well, if you’re the Chinese government, you just monitor everyone’s text messages and throw the sleazy sexters in jail for awhile.
According to a recent report, people in the central Henan province who can’t control their erotic impulses and get caught may be fined or sent to jail for up to five days. And that’s for only one infraction—three or more messages could get you as many as 10 days in prison, plus the fine as well.
Additionally, the northeastern Liaoning province announced earlier in the year that inappropriate messages could be considered sexual harassment.
In other parts of China the solution wasn’t as simple as that. Apparently, party officials in Shenze county (in the Hebei province) sat down at 480 different meetings over a month’s time to discuss the pros and cons of sexting.
Yes, that’s 480 meetings! And they didn’t even specify what the basic punishment would be, although serious textual offenders will have the dubious honor of seeing their names flashed all over the media. Or, to put it bluntly—“Go ahead and sext, but we’re gonna shame you to death, you pervert.”
With over 600 million cell phone users in China, explicit text messages are becoming an increasing problem. It’s no fun to receive an obscene SMS, especially if you don’t know the person who sent it.
“It’s uncomfortable to get dirty text messages from male friends and even more gross when they are from strangers,” said Zhang Kai, 26, who thinks the new rules are a good idea.
Others, however, aren’t convinced.
“There are so many text messages going on now,” said Wang Xiaoyang, a lawyer from Zhenzhou. “How can they be checked one by one? It takes considerable personnel and resources from the public security system.”
Well, since China does monitor all internal communications, I’m sure the government will find a way to catch all the vulgar vagabonds. In the meantime, just play it smart if you’re in China—don’t send that sext message!
By Brandt on 27-08-2009
Comment by Qwerty
August 28th, 2009 at 3:44 am
Suppressive authoritarian government at its best. Next the Chinese government will censor what its citizens say… oh wait they already do.
Comment by Brandt
August 28th, 2009 at 4:36 am
Yeah. Even text messages, sheesh.
Comment by pacat
August 29th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
SO? What else is new…notice the northern provence? they come up with some really rules to live all the way around
Comment by Anon
August 30th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Wouldn't be hard to monitor, just like email spam filters, built on criteria and tested against test data until efficiency is around 99.x%, then hand check the results.
The real problem is that many people never register their phone numbers, the govt has no way of knowing my phone number, unless they call me or someone I've called that is.
Anyway, I'd go more with an enrollable system, auto tests messages you receive, unless you opt out.
Perhaps most people don't want those messages, but some may.
Then again, no matter what you say about rules and such in China, I still feel free'er and happier living here than Australia.
Comment by yiqiW
September 10th, 2009 at 4:34 am
This isnt hard to believe, and I’d agree on “It’s uncomfortable to get dirty text messages from male friends and even more gross when they are from strangers,” said Zhang Kai, 26
Imagine your child recieving sexually explicit messages, thats disturbing.
In Australia, I’ve been told the government saves all text messages sent, although they are not allowed to view the contents of those messages due to privacy reasons.
The government in China may seem to censor a minority of what people say, and it may seem to be a breach of peoples basic human rights, but they do it to ensure that the majority of the people can live in a somewhat peaceful society. Seeing as there are so many inhabitants in China, were they all to be allowed to say/do whatever they’d pleased, it could turn into chaos. Religion and beliefs will clash, groups using violence against the government which ultimately leads to more blood being shed.
Least thats my view of a ‘possible’ scenario.