美国国家公共电台 NPR From Hate Speech To Fake News: The Content Crisis Facing Mark Zuckerberg

From Hate Speech To Fake News: The Content Crisis Facing Mark Zuckerberg

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We have some inside information on how Facebook works - specifically, its information about how Facebook regulates what you see, everything from hate speech to fake news stories and more. It's all in the news because of concerns that fake news stories may have influenced voters in last week's election. But it's been an issue for Facebook for quite some time. NPR's Aarti Shahani learned how Facebook does what it does, so we got her on the line for what is not a fake news story.

AARTI SHAHANI, BYLINE²: Hi. How are you?

INSKEEP: So how big is this? How much bigger is this than just fake news?

SHAHANI: It's way bigger than fake news, and it's something that we're seeing over and over and over again with a different controversy³ of the moment. So for example, over the summer, you'll recall, there were these three high-profile shootings, right, against police officers and against two black men, one of whom bled to death on Facebook Live. At that point during the summer, employees in the company told me that users are flagging each other's posts left and right. That is, users can alert Facebook to a post and say, hey, this violates your rules; I want this taken down.

INSKEEP: The rules having to do with what's hate speech and what's not, what's decent and what's not, that sort of thing.

SHAHANI: Yeah, and not just hate speech but, for example, what's nudity, what's sexist. It's actually quite strict.

INSKEEP: And then the question you sought to answer was, how do they actually enforce those rules, given the complexity⁴ of all the different kinds of things that are put online? What did you find?

SHAHANI: So Facebook's head of global policy, a woman named Monika Bickert, said that any time a post is flagged, her staff comes together and puts a lot of thought into the decisions about what stays up and what comes down, but they deeply consider the context of each post. She used that word over and over again to suggest we are really thoughtful, and we stand by our decisions.

INSKEEP: So it sounds pretty good, but what did you find about what they actually do?

SHAHANI: The truth is, Facebook actually has an entire army of subcontractors out in Warsaw and in Manila - the Philippines. And because of privacy laws as well as technical glitches⁵, these subcontractors can't even see the entire post that they're looking at. And they're pressured to work at an extremely fast rate - about one post every 10 seconds.

INSKEEP: So the people who are supposed to be figuring this out and monitoring hate speech and other kinds of offensive speech have to decide in 10 seconds, based on hardly any information?

SHAHANI: They have to decide quickly, and they are in a work environment that encourages them to go at lightning speed. Let's just say they have a regular shift at the rate of one post every 10 seconds. That means each person is clearing about 3,000 posts a day. That's very different from thoughtful, slow and precise.

INSKEEP: OK, so how well is it working?

SHAHANI: Well, you know, we ran a little experiment, right? We ended up flagging about 200 posts that could be considered hate speech against blacks and against whites. And what we found is that Facebook makes a whole lot of mistakes. For example, we flagged a post that calls for the killing⁶ of cops, and they totally missed that. It's a call to violence, and they said it was permissible⁷ speech. In dozens of instances, this happened and Facebook had to change its mind on its decision. So lots of mistakes, you know, not a whole lot of confidence in the system.

INSKEEP: Does Facebook not really want to be in this business, not really want to be making editorial choices for their consumers?

SHAHANI: Well, you know, I think they're ambivalent⁸. Basically, Mark Zuckerberg at age 19 starts this company. He's describes it as a technology company just connecting people. Then he makes all these very strategic moves to make Facebook the thing through which you consume the news, the thing through which you have public discourse⁹. And it also has to be a safe space where people don't feel threatened. So it's getting very, very messy. And he is clearly now the CEO of a media company, and it's not clear that he has the core competency for it.

INSKEEP: Aarti, thanks for your reporting.

SHAHANI: Thank you.

INSKEEP: That's NPR's Aarti Shahani. Now, a Facebook spokesperson got back to us, telling NPR that their subcontractors are put through rigorous quality controls. And as for that calculation of less than 10 seconds to examine each flagged post, Facebook disputes it, saying its employees' numbers are off, though the company did not offer its own numbers

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

4 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。

5 glitches   

n.小过失，差错( glitch的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Manufacturing glitches have limited the factory's output. 生产中的故障影响了该厂的产量。 来自辞典例句
• Another kind of period variation,\"Glitches,\" are seen in several pulsars. 在几个脉冲星中还看到了周期的另一种变化，即“自转突快”现象。 来自辞典例句

6 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

7 permissible   

adj.可允许的，许可的

参考例句：

• Is smoking permissible in the theatre?在剧院里允许吸烟吗？
• Delay is not permissible,even for a single day.不得延误，即使一日亦不可。

8 ambivalent   

adj.含糊不定的；(态度等)矛盾的

参考例句：

• She remained ambivalent about her marriage.她对于自己的婚事仍然拿不定主意。
• Although she professed fear of the Russians,she seemed to have ambivalent feelings toward Philby himself.虽然她承认害怕俄国人，然而她似乎对菲尔比本人有一种矛盾的感情。

9 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。