纽约时报 沙特部署网络水军 专门扼杀哈苏吉等批判人士(4)（在线收听）

Citizens in countries with repressive governments have long used Tor to circumvent firewalls and evade government surveillance.

长期以来，身处专制政府领导的国家的公民一直在用Tor突破防火墙，规避政府监督。

“As a precaution, we are alerting you that your Twitter account is one of a small group of accounts that may have been targeted by state-sponsored actors,”

“为了谨慎起见，我们提醒您，有一小部分推特账户可能落入了一些国家支持的行动者的目标范围，您的账户就在其中。”

the emails from Twitter said.

推特发送给用户的电子邮件写到。

The Saudis’ sometimes ruthless image-making campaign is also a byproduct of the kingdom’s increasingly fragile position internationally.

沙特人为了打造良好的国际形象，有时不惜采取残忍的手段，这也是沙特王国的国际地位日趋脆弱所致。

For decades, their coffers bursting from the world’s thirst for oil,

几十年来，沙特的金库靠着世人对石油的渴望日渐充实，

Saudi leaders cared little about what other countries thought of the kingdom, its governance or its anachronistic restrictions on women.

沙特领导人也不在意外界对他们的王国，对他们治理国家的方式以及他们对妇女抱残守缺般的禁锢作何感想。

But Saudi Arabia is confronting a more uncertain economic future as oil prices have fallen and competition among energy suppliers has grown,

然而，随着石油价格下跌，能源供应商之间的竞争加剧，

and Crown Prince Mohammed has tried relentlessly to attract foreign investment into the country —

王储穆罕默德又一直不遗余力地吸引外国投资进入该国——

in part by portraying it as a vibrant, more socially progressive country than it once was.

手段之一便是将沙特描绘成一个充满活力，较过去也更为进步的国家——沙特经济的未来已经愈加不稳。

Yet the government’s social media manipulation tracks with crackdowns in recent years in other authoritarian states,

然而，最近几年，沙特政府操控社交媒体的行为与其他专制国家的镇压活动并无不同，

said Alexei Abrahams, a research fellow at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.

多伦多大学公民实验室的研究员阿列克谢·亚伯拉罕斯说到。

Even for conversations involving millions of tweets, a few hundred or a few thousand influential accounts drive the discussion, he said, citing new research.

即使是涉及数百万条推文的网络对话，也有几百甚至几千个大V账户引导人们的讨论，他援引某新研究说到。

The Saudi government appears to have realized this and tried to take control of the conversation, he added.

他补充说，沙特政府似乎意识到了这一点并试图控制谈话。

“From the regime’s point of view,” he said, “if there are only a few thousand accounts driving the discourse,

“从沙特政府的角度来看，”他说，“如果只有几千个账户在引导网民们的讨论的话，

you can just buy or threaten the activists, and that significantly shapes the conversation.”

你只需要收买或者威胁其中的活跃分子就可以了，这样能够有效改变讨论的风向。”

As the Saudi government tried to remake its image, it carefully tracked how some of its more controversial decisions were received,

试图改换自己形象的沙特政府仔细地追查人们对他们争议较大的决定的反应，

and how the country’s most influential citizens online shaped those perceptions.

以及最有影响力的沙特公民在网上对大家的看法的影响。

After the country announced economic austerity measures in 2015 to offset low oil prices and control a widening budget gap,

2015年该国宣布经济紧缩政策，以抵消油价降级的影响并控制日益扩大的预算缺口之后，

McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm, measured the public reception of those policies.

咨询公司麦肯锡对这些政策的民意进行了调查。

In a nine-page report, a copy of which was obtained by The Times,

在一份长达9页的报告——这是《泰晤士报》拿到的一份复印件——中，

McKinsey found that the measures received twice as much coverage on Twitter as in the country’s traditional news media or blogs,

麦肯锡发现，这些措施在推特上的报道量是在该国传统新闻媒体或博客上的报道量的两倍，

and that negative sentiment far outweighed positive reactions on social media.

而且，社交媒体上反映出来的负面反应远超过正面反应。

Three people were driving the conversation on Twitter, the firm found: the writer Khalid al-Alkami;

该公司还发现，推动网民讨论的主要人物有三个：作家哈立德·阿尔卡米；

Mr. Abdulaziz, the young dissident living in Canada; and an anonymous user who went by Ahmad.

阿卜杜勒阿齐兹，就是那位生活在加拿大的异见人士；此外还有一名自称“艾哈迈德”的匿名用户。

After the report was issued, Mr. Alkami was arrested, the human rights group ALQST said.

报告发布后，阿尔卡米先生被捕，人权组织ALQST透露。

Mr. Abdulaziz said that Saudi government officials imprisoned two of his brothers and hacked his cellphone, an account supported by a researcher at Citizen Lab.

阿卜杜拉齐兹先生说，沙特政府官员囚禁了他的两个兄弟，还破解了他的手机，他的账户是公民实验室某研究员提供支持的。

Ahmad, the anonymous account, was shut down.

艾哈迈德的账户，就是那个匿名账户，也被关闭了。

McKinsey said the austerity report was an internal document based on publicly available information and not prepared for any government entity.

麦肯锡表示，紧缩报告是基于公开信息整理成的内部文件，并未准备给任何政府部门。

“We are horrified by the possibility, however remote, that it could have been misused,” a McKinsey spokesman said in a statement.

“该报告可能，无论可能性有多小，被他人利用了，对此我们感到十分震惊，” 麦肯锡发言人在一份声明中表示。

"We have seen no evidence to suggest that it was misused,

“目前我们还没有拿到任何证明数据已经被利用的证据，

but we are urgently investigating how and with whom the document was shared.”

但我们正在紧急调查该文件的分享方式及分享对象。”