Television host Bianca Gonzalez was among those who raised the alarm over the alleged spam texts bearing Chinese characters.
The TV personality tweeted the following on Tuesday: “‘Yung spam text ngayon, level up, Chinese characters na! Nakakuha na din ba kayo ng [ganon]?”
Bianca accompanied it with a flushed face emoji.
Several Filipinos responded by attaching supposed screengrabs of the text message received.
“Annoying, sobra,” a Twitter user commented.
Annoying sobra pic.twitter.com/smBQKlH14K
— Floyd Tena (@floydtena) October 18, 2022
“Yes, now lang! Sabay sabay ata tayo nakakuha?” development worker Ben Bernabe said, sharing his own screengrab.
Yes, now lang! Sabay sabay ata tayo nakakuha? pic.twitter.com/TxsI6R6sF4
— Ben Bernabe (@yogawithben) October 18, 2022
“Yes, just today,” another Twitter user responded to Bianca with a pensive face emoji.
Yes, just today. 😔 pic.twitter.com/K8dl7S4cCG
— Cedric Karlo (@imcedric) October 18, 2022
Another Twitter user shared a glimpse of her inbox featuring spam texts of different numbers with Chinese messages.
yes 💀 https://t.co/5GZHqjmwuh pic.twitter.com/BrThGJbTri
— x’ (@womansbathtube) October 18, 2022
The text messages with Chinese characters are the latest type of spam SMS reported by mobile users.
A few months ago, the spam texts included the recipients’ full names, while others shared receiving texts with their gender pronouns.
Addressing complaints on the issue, the National Telecommunications Commission in September ordered telecommunication companies to block or deactivate website links being sent through text messages.
According to the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), the Philippines is coordinating with other countries to address spam messages.
“I cannot reveal to you, because it would signal… because some of the operators are located in those countries,” DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said last October 9.
“Those law enforcement agencies, we’re working on them also to work on their warrants and so if I tell you where they are, they’ll pack up and leave,” he added.
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