No legal basis for 'dirty' penalties: expert
- Source: Global Times
- [01:39 January 20 2010]
- Comments
By Huang Jingjing
Mobile phone operators that punish subscribers who send or receive dirty messages as part of a porn crackdown are doing so without any legal basis, a lawyer and an Internet expert said Tuesday.
China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecommunications have signed on to a government call to tackle pornography on mobile phones. The operators have agreed to suspend the text message function of users who send dirty messages, Beijing News reported Tuesday.
Chen Tao, a member of the Beijing Bar Association, told the Global Times Tuesday the policy is illegal.
"Suspending the message function or cutting off a subscriber to the network lacks legal basis," he said.
The Law on Penalties for Administration of Public Security stipulates that people who circulate obscene information that interrupts the normal life of other people and causes harm will be subject to a penalty or detention.
"There is no regulation that allows the mobile phone operators to suspend functions," Chen said.
He added even if the operators have such a right, they should listen to the senders' explanations before punishing them.
Mobile phone users have expressed their frustration at Shanghai Mobile, a subsidiary of China Mobile in Shanghai, after it was reported they would invalidate phone numbers of some guilty customers.
But a company spokesman told Xinmin Evening News that they would not invalidate phone numbers, but would suspend the message services and report it to police.
The mobile phone operators will determine whether a message is dirty based on 13 definitions issued by seven ministries in early 2009. The prohibited actions include direct exposure of sexual organs and descriptions that could lead to indecent or sexual thoughts.
Huang Chengqing, vice director of the Internet Society of China, said simply shutting down websites and suspending functions will not stop the spread of porn.
"We do not want to see that the pornographic content fades away when the campaign is on, but comes back again when the campaign is over," he told the Global Times Tuesday.
