2020年经济学人 字节跳动引美国关注(3)

No wonder American rivals are trying to clip its wings.

难怪美国的竞争对手们都想要断其羽翼。

Facebook’s TikTok clone, Lasso, has flopped¹.

Facebook推出的TikTok克隆版Lasso已经失败了。

YouTube is said to be developing another (called Shorts).

据说YouTube正在开发另一款应用（叫做Shorts）。

But the biggest threat has emerged in the form of America’s government, wary² of China’s rise in any sphere.

但最大的威胁来自美国政府，它对中国在任何领域的崛起都非常警惕。

Politicians in Washington fear that data on American users is being handed to Beijing;

华盛顿的政客们担心美国用户的数据会被提交给北京;

that Chinese algorithm designers are infecting impressionable Western youngsters with communist propaganda;

担心中国的算法设计师正在宣传共产主义，去感染易受影响的西方年轻人;

and that ByteDance content is censored³ in line with party whims⁴.

还担心字节跳动的内容是根据党的意愿进行审查的。

In March two Republican senators introduced a bill that would ban TikTok from all government devices.

今年3月，两名共和党参议员提出了一项法案，将禁止所有政府设备使用TikTok。

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is reviewing ByteDance’s acquisition in 2018 of Musical.ly,

美国外国投资委员会(CFIUS)正在审查字节跳动公司在2018年收购Musical.ly的交易，

another app, which had 60m users in America and Europe.

它是另一款应用，在美国和欧洲拥有6000万用户。

In statements, TikTok has said that it stores all American “user data in the United States”

TikTok在声明中表示，它将所有美国用户数据存储在美国，

and that its American operations are “not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government”.

其美国业务“不受包括中国政府在内的任何外国政府的影响”。

The firm is trying to mollify critics and has hired prominent security and legal experts in America to help it.

该公司正试图安抚批评人士，并聘请了美国著名的安全和法律专家来帮助它。

Last month it opened a “transparency centre” in Los Angeles,

上个月，它在洛杉矶开设了一个“透明中心”，

where it promises to share information about its content-moderation, privacy and security controls,

在那里，它承诺分享有关其内容——审核、隐私和安全控制——的信息，

and said it would stop using moderators in China to handle content from users outside the country.

并表示将停止使用中国的调解人来处理来自国外用户的内容。

That, most lawyers and technologists reckon, may help get CFIUS off its back.

多数律师和技术专家认为，这可能会让CFIUS无话可说。

Listing ByteDance in Hong Kong, which is under consideration, may also foster trust.

字节跳动正考虑在香港上市，这也可能加强信任。

So would anointing a non-Chinese successor—though, at 37, Mr Zhang may not be ready to retire.

任命一位非中国籍的继任者也是如此——尽管37岁的张先生可能还没有准备好退休。

As a last resort, he is said to be willing to contemplate⁵ spinning TikTok off.

据说，作为最后的手段，他愿意考虑拆分TikTok。

That would cement the digital divide between China and the West—until another hit ByteDance app tries to bridge it.

这将加深中国和西方之间的数字鸿沟，直到另一款热门的字节跳动应用程序对此进行弥补。

1 flopped   

v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的过去式和过去分词 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅

参考例句：

• Exhausted, he flopped down into a chair. 他筋疲力尽，一屁股坐到椅子上。
• It was a surprise to us when his play flopped. 他那出戏一败涂地，出乎我们的预料。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 wary   

adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的

参考例句：

• He is wary of telling secrets to others.他谨防向他人泄露秘密。
• Paula frowned,suddenly wary.宝拉皱了皱眉头，突然警惕起来。

3 censored   

受审查的，被删剪的

参考例句：

• The news reports had been heavily censored . 这些新闻报道已被大幅删剪。
• The military-backed government has heavily censored the news. 有军方撑腰的政府对新闻进行了严格审查。

4 WHIMS   

虚妄，禅病

参考例句：

• The mate observed regretfully that he could not account for that young fellow's whims. 那位伙伴很遗憾地说他不能说出那年轻人产生怪念头的原因。
• The rest she had for food and her own whims. 剩下的钱她用来吃饭和买一些自己喜欢的东西。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

5 contemplate   

vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视

参考例句：

• The possibility of war is too horrifying to contemplate.战争的可能性太可怕了，真不堪细想。
• The consequences would be too ghastly to contemplate.后果不堪设想。