China mobile has recently begun censoring text messages with ‘yellow content’ (sexting, basically). People were upset by the invasion of privacy, so the compromise with customers was to simply block messages that don’t meet the filter requirements, rather than prosecute individuals sending lurid packets of binary filth. It’s taken as a given that technology controls will eventually run into problems with commerce.

Bearing this important narrative mind, I asked a Shanghainese pro-d0mme friend over noodles how she felt about the new rules. Surely her scheduling methodology would be affected. She replied: “since most of my clients are from the US and Europe, I don’t care. I can still use English” [the filters not being calibrated to reign in worldly, cosmopolitan smut, as it were.]