VOA慢速英语2012--Consumers' Online Petitions Put Pressure on Businesses

Technology Report - Consumers' Online Petitions Put Pressure on Businesses

 

科技报道 - 消费者网上请愿向商家施压

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。

The modern way to collect signatures on a petition requires no paper or pen or standing on a street for hours. All it requires is going online.

收集请愿书签名的现代方式不再需要纸和笔，不再需要在街头站几个钟头，只需要上网即可。

Change.org is a social action website where people around the world can start or sign online petitions. The top causes range from animal protection to criminal justice to women's rights.

Change.org是一个社会行为网站，世界各地的人们可以在该网站上发起或签署网上请愿书。热门事件范围从动物保护到刑法公正再到妇女权利。

There are many different reasons why people start petitions at the site. Lauren Todd of New York told CBS television that she started a petition a few months ago after she saw a picture of a girls shirt on Facebook. The shirt read: "I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me."

人们在该网站发起请愿的原因千奇百怪。来自纽约的劳伦·托德（Lauren Todd）对CBS电视台表示，几个月前，她在Facebook上看到一张女衬衫的图片后，发起了一次请愿。这件衬衫上写着：“我太漂亮了不能做功课，所以我哥得帮我做功课。”

LAUREN TODD: "It was outrageous enough to be posted on Facebook, but it was actually more outrageous than that, and I felt like I needed to do something about it."

托德：“把它发到Facebook上已经够离谱的，但它实际上比这更离谱。我觉得我必须就此做些事情。”

Ms. Todd's petition urged shoppers to boycott J.C. Penney stores until they stopped selling shirts with what she called sexist messages.

托德女士的请愿号召买家抵制彭尼百货公司（J.C. Penney stores），直到它们停止销售被她称为性别歧视的衬衫。

Five hours later, Shelby Knox started tweeting about the petition to her thousands of Twitter followers. Ms. Knox is the director of women's rights organizing for Change.org. Some of her followers also started tweeting about the shirt and signing the petition.

五个小时后，谢尔比·诺克斯（Shelby Knox）把这次请愿推（Tweeting，相当于国内发微博的意思）给她数千名粉丝。诺克斯女士是Change.org网站妇女权利组织主任。一些她的粉丝也开始推这件事，并签署请愿书。

SHELBY KNOX: "From the time that Lauren started the petition on Change.org and J.C. Penney pulled the shirt, it was about ten hours, in which it got over two thousand signatures and at one point was generating over four hundred tweets a minute."

诺克斯：“从劳伦在Change.org网站发起请愿到彭尼百货公司下架衬衫，大约用了十个小时。这次请愿获得2千多个签名，每分钟曾一度发出4百多条推特。”

Ms. Knox said that with each new signature, an e-mail automatically went to J.C. Penney's public relations team. Another went to the company's chief. J.C. Penney, without comment, discontinued the shirts.

诺克斯女士说，每个新签名都会有一封电子邮件自动发到彭尼百货公司公关小组。另一封发给公司负责人。彭尼百货公司未作任何评论，停产了这件衬衫。

Clothing designer John Noone has worked with a number of large stores. He says he has always used words like "pretty" or "princess" when he creates shirts for girls.

服装设计师约翰·诺纳（John Noone）与一些大型卖场合作。他说他设计女衬衣时一直使用类似“漂亮”或“公主”之类的词。

JOHN NOONE: "Because it's easy to do, I guess it's just so ingrained in our culture that just it's an easy sale. It's going to be easier to sell a shirt that says, you know, 'My little princess' than, uh, 'My A student.'"

诺纳：“因为它很容易做到，我猜在我们的文化中这样会好卖已经根深蒂固。你知道，写着‘小公主’的衬衣会比写着‘学生’的衬衣好卖。”
　

Collecting petition signatures the traditional way

Mr. Noone says fashion designers find their ideas in many places. It could be a celebrity's tweet or something said on a TV show.

诺纳先生说，时装设计师会从很多地方寻找创意。它可能是一位名人的推特，或电视节目上说的话。

JOHN NOONE: "And if you think it's funny and the designer thinks it's funny and the buyer thinks it's funny, then it, you know, it makes it to the store."

诺纳：“如果大家觉得它很有趣，商店就会开始出售。”

But now, with the Internet, consumers who take offense can do more than just write an angry letter to the company.

但现在有了互联网，对此生气的消费者除了给公司写封表示愤怒的信，还可以做更多。

Another clothing seller, Forever 21, got in trouble not long after J.C. Penney. Forever 21 was selling a girl's shirt that read "Allergic to Algebra." It stopped selling them the day after the story spread.

另一家服装零售商，Forever 21在彭尼百货公司不久后也惹上了麻烦。Forever 21出售过一件写着“对代数过敏”的女衬衫。在这事开始传播一天后，该公司停止了出售。

Robin Sackin is a professor at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. She thinks people should not get so angry. Children are influenced by their parents, she says, not the words on a shirt.

罗宾·萨克（Robin Sackin）是纽约时装技术学院一名教授。她认为人们不该生气，她说儿童是受父母的影响而不是印在衬衫上的话。

ROBIN SACKIN: "So if my child says to me 'Mommy, I want to get that,' I've said, 'OK, you can have it, but just remember something -- I don't care if you're pretty, you're doing your homework.'"

萨克：“如果我孩子对我说，‘妈妈，我想买那件衣服，’我会说，‘可以，你可以买这件衣服，但要记住，我才不管你漂亮，自己做作业！’”

And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report. Have you ever started a petition -- online or on paper? Tell us your story at voanews.cn. I'm Mario Ritter.
___

Contributing: Ashley Milne-Tyte