At Foreign Policy, Liz Carter notes a recommendation from the China Internet Network Information Center that telecom companies promote rural mobile internet adoption by dumbing down smartphones:
The report, released Nov. 27, cites the statistic that rural Chinese are underrepresented online: At the end of 2012, Internet penetration in the countryside was 23.7 percent, compared to 59.1 percent in cities. But the number of rural residents who used mobile phones to go online in 2012 increased by 20.9 percent, and rural Internet users surf the web via smartphone at a slightly higher rate than urban netizens (75.3 percent versus 72.3 percent over the past six months). To better serve rural residents, researchers suggested telecom companies attempt to shaguahua their products — that is, make them for “stupid melons,” Chinese slang for ‘idiots.’ Because “most residents of rural villages are not very knowledgeable or cultured,” the report argued, they will be less inclined to use cell phones to go online “if the equipment systems are too complicated.” [Source]
