Chinese citizens hoping to share dirty jokes or flirtation via text message will now be subject to Beijing’s all-seeing eyes. After policing the Internet and censoring online dissent, the Chinese government has stepped up its monitoring of cell phone messages in the country. The government is encouraging people to be mindful of the texts they send, and is asking them to refrain from writing or forwarding any smutty messages or pornographic content.

State controlled-media has reported on the new effort to clean up cell phone messages. Mobile service providers in Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai are reportedly trying a text-filtering system, looking for porn or sexual content in short messages–which the Chinese refer to as “yellow texts.”

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Kudos to technology! A British surgeon volunteering in the Democratic Republic of Congo performed a complicated shoulder amputation by following text messages from a colleague in London. Dr. David Nott had never before performed a forequarter amputation, a procedure done only about ten times a year in the U.K. and requiring the removal of the shoulder blade and clavicle.

His patient was a 16-year-old boy whose left arm had been ripped off and was developing a dangerous infection. Nott knew it was a do or die situation. So he texted Professor Meirion Thomas, a colleague in London who had performed the surgery before. Thomas texted back step-by-step instructions, explaining where to make the incisions and how to divide major nerves and arteries. The text instructions ended with “Easy! Good luck.”

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