The censorship in China is being broadened to cell phone text messages. Clifford Coonan of  Variety observes that the telecom operators of China will cut off any SMS messages that do not meet the severe requirements of the country’s net ‘nannies’.

“China’s three major telecom operators, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, will block text messages that contain “vulgar or indecent” text messages. China has 750 million cellphone subscribers.” states Mr. Coonan.

This surveillance of SMS messages is part of a deeper operation that is pointed toward restricting the access of  the Internet.

“Facebook, YouTube and other popular websites are banned in China because of their potentially seditious content, and the government has made it illegal to set up personal websites without registering domain names with a state agency first.” declares Clifford Coonan. He also made the note, ”The text message content will be screened to see if it contains any of the 13 proscribed terms listed by nine government departments, including the description of sexual acts or human sexual organs, or any type of sexual innuendo.”

Many of China’s mobile phone users are worried that their privacy will be violated by these new guidelines. The parental control we see here in the United States seems to be extended to a more severe state of an enormous government control in China.

If you would like to view the full article, you can find it at: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118014492.html?categoryId=19&cs=1