PBS高端访谈:Facebook舆论风波层出不穷

（单词翻译）

It is a deep dive into the inner workings of Facebook.

咱们来深入研究一下Facebook的内部运作。

A Wall Street Journal investigation¹ out this week alleges² deceit and dangers at the social media giant.

《华尔街日报》本周的一项调查称这家社交媒体巨头存在欺骗和危险。

Among its conclusions? Facebook's platforms are -- quote -- "riddled³ with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully⁴ understands." John Yang has more.

在它的结论中，Facebook平台上“全是会造成伤害的缺陷，而这些缺陷的方式往往只有公司才能完全理解。”下面由约翰·杨为我们报道。

Judy, the series called "The Facebook Files" is based on The Journal's review of internal company documents.

朱迪，名为《Facebook文件》的系列报道基于《华尔街日报》对Facebook公司内部文件的审查。

The stories highlight the ways in which Facebook handles or doesn't handle a range of issues across its vast digital empire, from the negative effects of Instagram on young people to misinformation and violent content.

里面的故事突显了Facebook处理或不处理其庞大数字帝国的一系列问题的方式，从Instagram对年轻人的负面影响到错误信息和暴力内容。

Jeff Horwitz is the lead reporter on the series and joins us now.

杰夫·霍维茨是本系列的首席记者，现在加入我们的访谈。

Jeff, thanks for being with us. You have got four installments⁵ that have published so far. You have a fifth coming.

杰夫，感谢加入此次访谈。目前为止你已经发表了四篇文章，第五篇也即将发表。

Is there a common thread or a common takeaway to all these stories that you're finding?

在你发现的这些故事中，有没有一个中心点或者一个结论？

There are probably a couple.

大概有两个。

One is that Facebook has, in the last few years, come to understand, through significant research, what its effects are on society.

一个是，在过去几年里，Facebook通过重要的研究，逐渐了解到了它对社会的影响。

And they turn out to be pretty grave in some instances. And it is not all good news they're finding. In fact, a lot of it is very bad.

在某些情况下这些影响会变得相当严重。他们发现的并不都是好消息，相反，很多都是坏消息。

And I think how the company has done that work and responded, or more often than not, not responded to it, is, I think, a very important thing.

我在想，公司是如何做这些工作的，如何回应的，或者更多的时候，是如何不回应的。我觉得这很重要。

And then I think there is also an element of this where it's just Facebook appears to have a very hard time managing itself, keeping attention on problems to fix them, and actually sort of adhering to its own rules internally.

我觉得还有一个因素是，Facebook似乎很难管理自己，很难关注问题并解决问题，公司内部实际上很难遵守自己的规则。

And a lot of these issues, when they arise and are talked about, the -- Facebook's leaders, Mark Zuckerberg and others, often, to me, seem surprised that this is an issue. But you're finding otherwise.

有很多这样的问题，当问题出现并被拿出来讨论时，Facebook的领导者，马克·扎克伯格和其他人，通常对我来说，会惊讶出现这种问题。但你发现了另一种情况。

Yes, it is a strange thing, given that the company just sort of doesn't seem to expect the misuse⁶ of its platform that people who are misusing⁷ its platform should have trained them on by now.

是的，考虑到该公司似乎并不期望滥用其平台，这是一件奇怪的事情，而那些滥用其平台的人现在应该已经进行了培训。

So, one of the stories is Facebook's failure to address human trafficking and cartel violence on its platform.

所以，其中有一个事情是，Facebook未能在其平台上解决人口贩运和卡特尔暴力问题。

They really turn out to sort of have a hard time focusing on this and putting resources in.

他们真的很难专注于这个问题并投入资源。

And every once in a while, it sort of suddenly pops up, and it is very embarrassing, and they have to run around.

每隔一段时间，问题就突然出现，非常尴尬，他们不得不四处奔走。

But they don't ever sort of manage to get it done on a day-to-day basis, if that makes sense.

但他们从来没有设法一步步去解决这个问题，如果能解决的话。

And on that issue of drug cartels, human trafficking, Facebook provided us a statement that says:

在贩毒集团和人口贩卖问题上，Facebook向我们提供了一份声明，声明中说：

"In countries at risk for conflict and violence, we have a comprehensive strategy, including relying on global teams with native speakers covering over 50 languages, educational resources and partnerships⁸ with local experts and third-party fact-checkers to keep people safe."

“在面临冲突和暴力风险的国家，我们有一个全面战略，包括依靠以超过50种语言为母语的全球团队、教育资源以及与当地专家和第三方事实核查员的合作，以此来确保人民的安全。”

But, as I read your story, they -- employees may be flagging things, but there isn't necessarily reaction within the company.

但是，当我读到你写的故事时，员工们可能会标记一些事情，但公司内部不一定会给出反应。

Yes. So, to start off with, Facebook offers its services in over 100 languages.

是的。首先，Facebook提供超过100种语言的服务。

So the 50 languages might not be as impressive as one would hope there.

因此，50种语言可能并不像人们希望的那样令人印象深刻。

But, yes, I think there are a whole bunch of really dedicated⁹ people who are working for this company.

但是，是的，我认为在这家公司有一群非常敬业的人。

They have been asked to solve really, really horrendous¹⁰ societal issues, or at least to address them on the platform, such as people being sold into indentured¹¹ servitude in the Gulf¹² states on their platform.

公司要求他们解决非常非常可怕的社会问题，或者至少是在平台上解决这些问题，比如海湾国家的人们在他们的平台上被卖为契约奴隶。

And they sort of recommend the company do things. And then, oftentimes, the follow-through just isn't there.

他们建议公司做一些事情。然后，通常情况下，他们不会跟进。

In talking -- about one of your stories that got a lot of reaction, or has gotten a lot of reaction, is about Instagram, the photo sharing app that Facebook owns.

你写的故事里有一个引起了很多人的反应，或者已经引起了很多人的反应，是关于Instagram的，Facebook旗下的照片分享应用程序。

You write that Facebook's and Instagram's own research shows the harmful effects this app has or can have on young people, and especially teenage girls.

你写道，Facebook和Instagram自己的研究表明，这款应用程序已经或可能对年轻人，尤其是少女，产生有害影响。

Yes, so this is something that, over the last -- since basically 2018-2019, they have been researching what they call negative social comparison.

是的，这件事，可以说从2018-2019年以来，他们一直在研究所谓的“负面社会比较”。

And I think at least, listen, when I started this stuff, I would have assumed that sort of Instagram's kind of like high school or something, right, in the sense that there's going to be social pressure, but we all get through it for the most part.

我想，至少，听着，在我刚开始研究这个的时候，我以为Instagram有点像高中什么的，是的，从某种意义上来说会有社会压力，但大多数情况我们都能应付。

I think the thing that was really surprising was how heavily it seemed to impact people who Instagram identified as already vulnerable.

我想真正令人惊讶的是，它对那些被Instagram定义为脆弱的用户影响太大了。

So, we make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls is a conclusion that they drew internally and presented to management.

所以就是说，我们让三分之一的十几岁女孩的身体形象问题变得更糟，这是她们在内部得出并提交给管理层的结论。

And, in fact, they found that, in some instances, for young women who were thinking about self-harm within the last month, that 6 percent of those traced that thought directly back to Instagram.

事实上，他们发现，在某些情况下，在上个月有自残想法的年轻女性中，有6%直接将这一想法归咎于Instagram。

So we're not talking necessarily huge numbers of people, but it is potentially life-or-death issues here.

所以，被影响的人或许不多，但这一问题关乎生死。

Instagram's head of public policy providers with a statement about that story.

Instagram的公共政策提供者负责人就此事发表了声明。

She said: "We take these findings seriously. And we set up a specific effort to respond to this research and change Instagram for the better."

她说：“我们很重视这些发现。我们做出了具体的措施来回应这项研究，让Instagram变得更好。”

These issues that you have you have uncovered about Facebook or you write about, how much are they -- to what extent do they drive the bottom line for Facebook?

你发现或写过的关于Facebook的问题，它们在多大程度上推动了Facebook的底线？

Do they drive their revenue, sort of define what Facebook is?

他们是否推动了收益，定义了Facebook？

Yes, I think Facebook has really sort of built itself around the idea that the more usage of Facebook is, the better the world is in general.

是的，我认为Facebook确实是围绕着这样一个理念建立起来的：使用Facebook的人越多，世界就越美好。

And so they have kind of engineered this system to be as sticky as possible, to keep you coming back as often as possible, and to be as entertaining as possible.

所以他们把这个系统设计得尽可能有粘性，让你尽可能经常回来，尽可能有趣。

And they don't really -- focusing on the quality of the things and the types of content that succeeded wasn't really the focus.

他们并没有真正关注内容的质量和成功内容的类型，这并不是他们真正关注的重点。

So I think it's becoming more of a focus now. They're thinking about it more, but it never has been the focus.

所以我认为现在它正变得越来越受关注。他们考虑的更多，但都不是重点。

And there still is a very large company attached to this work that wants to just sort of keep on doing the things that made it big and successful.

仍然有一家非常大的公司依附于这项工作，想要继续做一些事情，使它变得大而成功。

I think, with the teenage mental health in particular, it's extremely awkward, because they have done this really good research.

我认为，尤其是青少年的心理健康，这非常尴尬，因为他们做了非常棒的研究。

They have invested in understanding the problems in ways that I'm not convinced other tech giants actually have.

他们投资理解这些问题的方式我不相信其他科技巨头也有。

But the problem is that the findings were that some of their products' key features are uniquely problematic, that Instagram focuses attention on the body, unlike competing social media apps, which focus on the face or on performance.

但问题是，研究发现，他们的一些产品的关键功能有独特的问题，Instagram把注意力集中在身体上，不像其他社交媒体应用，只关注脸或表现。

And there's not an easy way to sort of get around that.

没有一个简单的方法来解决这个问题。

So I think this is kind of a situation where they have realized the negative side effects of what they do, but I'm not totally clear that there's an easy way to address them, nor are they.

所以我觉得情况是这样的，他们已经意识到自己的所为产生的负面影响，但我不确定有没有什么简单的方法能够解决这些问题，他们也不确定。

"The Facebook Files," a series in The Wall Street Journal. Jeff Horwitz, thank you very much.

《华尔街日报》的《Facebook文件》系列。杰夫·霍维茨，非常感谢。

Thank you.

谢谢。