The Chinese government took another draconian step aimed at strangling the flow of information between its citizens, with new, tighter regulations to monitor mobile phone text messages.
The authorities in China have been occasionally monitoring text messages for some time. Last year, 12 people were arrested following interception of messages they sent containing warnings about the outbreak of the respiratory disease SARS, which the government was trying to cover up.
This time, the government claims it is targeting pornography and criminals who use text messages to sell bogus goods and steal credit-card numbers. But the Paris-based organisation Reporters Without Borders (RWB) says the software the authorities are using to monitor text messages is more insidious. It can search for keywords, record or block 鈥渉armful鈥� messages, and issue police warnings. According to RWB, Venus Info Tech, the Chinese company that sells the software, will use filtering algorithms created by the Chinese Academy of Sciences to root out dissidents by identifying 鈥渇alse political rumours鈥� and 鈥渞eactionary remarks鈥�.
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鈥淭his is a big deal,鈥� says Xiao Qiang, who directs the Berkeley China Internet Project at the University of California in Berkeley. 鈥淭he government is making a remarkable effort both technically and legally to control society.鈥� While the move is a setback for free exchange of information, Xiao says this is a battle the people will win. 鈥淒espite the controls, the information the Chinese people have access to is only expanding.鈥�