China begins to crack down on ‘naughty’ text messages

“Obscene information not only harms the people’s soul but harms the people’s morality as well.” It’s with that rationale that China has begun to crack down on the scourge of inappropriate (read: “dirty”) text messages. Send one, and you can find yourself behind bars for a little while.

Punishments vary from province to province. In Henan, sending an inappropriate text can land you a 5-day jail sentence. Send three, and you’re facing a 10-day jail sentence and a cool 500 yuan (around $73) fine.

In Liaoning, send such a message and you could face sexual harassment charges.

In Hebei, Communist Party members can expect to be “punished” for sending naughty texts.

Sounds to me that if you want to stay on the right side of the law, you should keep your lewd thoughts to yourself.

Same thing goes here, too: how many times have we read stories about teen girls who send nude photos of themselves to their boyfriends, only for the boyfriend to then forward said photos all over school? Before you know it, you’re on the Today Show telling Matt Lauer (“And now, ‘sexting.’ What is it, and is your child safe?”) how your life is now over because of a stupid thing you did.

So, as we learned yesterday: don’t be an idiot.