China: Have Porn SMS, Will Travel -- To Jail
from the bad-boys-bad-boys-whatcha-gonna-do dept
Several months ago, Chinese officials said they'd begin blocking text messages that weren't socially beneficial. Now, they're prepared to go a step further, tossing people that send sexually explicit messages in jail for nine days and fining them about $60. Hopefully all those Cyrano SMS services are keeping things clean -- although putting people that forward stupid spam in jail might not be such a bad idea.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
hmm
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
But seriously, this is not a "spam" issue, although its directly related as far as we are concerned. For people in China its just the norm for the government to decide that a offence will decrease if jailtime is associated with it. If your RTA you can see that apparently there are quite a few things including peeping toms and "football Hooligans" that will get your rear placed in jail.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
China, SMS, private lives
I am all for decency and propriety but people have to learn how to govern themselves. And there has to be freedom of speech. I think that repressive laws such as this might make the people rebel and just plain hate how things work.
Then again, if it's a kind of discipline they want to enforce, I think that making policies like that is just too extreme. How would they draw the lines? That is one of the things I am concerned with.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
politics
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
about China
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
usa
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]