Monday July 21, 2008 at 7:51
“- Talk with some other Chinese professionals, whose business involves sending out a lot of instant text messages (SMS) on mobile phones. These short messages often seem to be China’s main communication systems. People rely far less on email than in America; I rarely see someone with a Blackberry; but everyone has a mobile phone, and sending messages is much cheaper than talking. As of tomorrow — I was told — new limits will apply on how many messages can be sent from each phone each hour. The limits are high enough that they won’t affect ordinary users but would make it harder to send a mass broadcast. I wondered what the reason could be. Trying to keep the airwaves free for important Olympic business? Saving the Chinese public from the “Google is making us stoopid” constant-distraction problem? Or something? Once they explained, it was obvious. Short messages are the main way people can react to news in a hurry — or organize actions in response. If you want to hold a meeting or rally or just get a lot of people to the same place at the same time, SMS is the way to go. So if you limit SMS, you’ve cut the main communication tool for individuals trying to act as a group.”
James Fallows (July 19, 2008) - Everything changes tomorrow (China)
It’s amazing the lengths that the Chinese government is willing to go to silencing people, when it’d be much easier to just drown them out with better entertainment.
