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!
