There has been a lot of bans in China recently, including what’s alleged to be a list of banned SMS words. The register first circulated by Shanghaiist can be grouped into six major categories including:
1. National security and political terms, which consists of more than 700 terms such as Cultural revolution, Xinjiang independence, Propaganda department, national securitu, anti-corruption, violence, riot, June 4, people, human right, democracy, CCP and etc.
2. Around 200 Falun Gong related terms.
3. Around 200 sensitive news related terms such as telling the truth, petition, SCMP, Asia Magazine, suicide, public opinion.
4. More than 600 vulgar terms, such as fxxk, gambling, sex, pornography, naked, dick, breast, fart, loser, dog shit, slut, illegal, bomb, adult movie, heroin, chat, prostitute, lonely, apartment, fake money, oral sex.
5. Around 800 names, including historical figures, political leaders and dissidents.
6. Around 500 terms for commercial spam.
As a check I sent a message containing the Chinese for SCMP (南华早报) and the recipient successfully got the message. However, in the murky world of SMS censorship these words could trip filters. There have been rumours that customers of China’s two largest mobile phone networks, China Mobile and China Unicom, have had their phone blocked after sending lewd messages.
