华盛顿邮报 Facebook被爆雇佣公关公司抹黑TikTok(2)

So, we got some really interesting e-mails from somebody close to Targeted Victory that showed real-time conversations between the directors and employees of this company, Targeted Victory,

所以，我们收到了一些非常有趣的电子邮件，来自与Targeted Victory关系密切的人，显示了该公司董事和员工之间的实时对话，

where you could see them gathering¹ not just sort of bad TikTok stories, but really trying to game out their strategy on,

在邮件中，你可以看到他们不仅收集了一些TikTok不好的故事，而且真的在尝试制定他们的策略，

"How do we reach local politicians and political reporters and newspapers and get this message out that TikTok is the real threat?"

“我们如何联系当地政界人士、政治记者和报纸，并将TikTok是真正的威胁这一信息传播出去?”

So, basically, this is like hiring a company to go find dirt on your competitor and just tell everyone how awful this competing company is, right?

所以，基本上，这就像雇佣一家公司去寻找你竞争对手的丑闻，然后告诉所有人这个竞争对手有多糟糕，对吧?

Yeah. It's the kind of, like, mudslinging campaign that politicians have been doing for a long time now, right?

是的。 这就像是政客们长期以来一直在做的一种揭秘活动，对吧?

Where they do these big, you know, oppo research dumps on the other guy and try and do all these sort of backhanded things to kind of toss it over to the competition.

他们对对手做了大量的研究，并试图做所有这些狡猾的事情，把它扔给竞争对手。

But here we had, like, these two giant companies doing it and we had, you know, Meta that is this billion-dollar social network trying to throw mud at the new competitor on the scene,

但是我们了解到，像这两家大公司在做这件事，我们了解到，Meta，这个价值数十亿美元的社交网络公司试图向新的竞争对手泼脏水，

this other, you know, video network called TikTok that was much more popular than Facebook now,

还有一个叫TikTok的视频网络公司，它比现在的Facebook 更受欢迎，

that is growing at rapid speed while Facebook is shrinking, and just adopting all of these kind of, like, backroom D.C. mudslinging techniques and bringing them into Big Tech.

TikTok这家公司在快速增长， 而Facebook这家公司却在萎缩，它采用了所有这些，像是华盛顿的秘密揭发技术，并把这些手段引入了大型科技公司。

And can you tell me just a little bit about this company, Targeted Victory, that was hired by Meta to start this campaign?

Meta 雇了Targeted Victory公司来发起这项活动，你能告诉我一些关于这家Targeted Victory公司的情况吗？

Yeah. They're based in D.C. and they're actually one of the biggest Republican strategy communications firms in America.

好。该公司的总部在华盛顿，他们实际上是美国最大的共和党战略传播公司之一。

They make money from all the biggest Republican campaigns, the super PAC that is a pro-Trump super PAC, America First, the Republican Congressional re-election committees.

他们从所有最大的共和党竞选活动中赚钱，如支持特朗普的超级政治行动委员会(super PAC)、美国优先(America First)、共和党国会连任委员会。

They make hundreds of millions of dollars every campaign season from these Republican campaigns, but they also work with companies.

他们在每个竞选季节从这些共和党竞选中赚取数亿美元，但他们也与公司合作。

And they've worked with Meta for years, helping² them kind of make connections in D.C., sort of navigate³ these communications crises of which Facebook has had many since 2016,

他们已经与Meta合作多年，帮助他们在华盛顿建立联系，帮助他们解决自2016年以来Facebook多次面临的通讯危机，

and just effectively shield Facebook or try to shield Facebook from, you know, the regulatory attacks that they may get in D.C. without their help.

他们有效地保护Facebook，或者试图保护Facebook免受监管攻击，如果没有他们的帮助，他们可能会在华盛顿受到监管攻击。

1 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

2 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

3 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。