Message to authorities: our text lives are private

Just as people in the West have become addicted to thumbing on their BlackBerries as a main form of communication, most mainlanders cannot live these days without the text-messaging function on their mobile phones.

By sending or receiving short text messages, mainlanders exchange greetings, solicit business transactions, swap gossip, flirt, propose marriage or terminate a relationship. Text messaging is instant, chic, private and cheap, averaging 10 fen per item, and it has become an integral part of daily life for mainlanders.

According to data, mainlanders send or receive 1.5 billion text messages every day and analysts have calculated that they account for over half of the total volume of text messages sent globally every year.

As the mainland authorities have been trying to tighten controls over traditional media and the internet, text messaging has become an even more preferred form of communication.

That explains the strong public reaction to the announcement last week by China Mobile, the mainland's largest mobile phone operator, that it would suspend text-messaging services to mobile phone users in Beijing and Shanghai who are found to have sent messages containing 'unhealthy' content. Although the operator didn't define 'unhealthy', it usually refers to messages containing sexual content.

State media reports later suggested that the two other major mobile phone operators, China Telecom and China Unicom, would also follow suit and so would China Mobile branches in other provinces and municipalities.