华盛顿邮报 被免职学者指控哈佛向科技公司低头（4）

 

    So, then that kind of brings us back to Joan Donovan, the researcher who was at Harvard up until recently, who we heard about at the top of the episode.

    这就把我们带回到琼·多诺万身上，直到最近，这位研究员还在哈佛大学工作，我们在这期节目的开头介绍过她。

    So, tell me a little bit more about her and her work and how she ended up kind of at the center of this debate about the influence of tech companies at universities.

    请多讲讲她和她的工作，以及她是如何成为这场关于科技公司对大学施加影响的辩论中心的。

    So, like many people who are now spending a lot of time analyzing¹ disinformation and misinformation and how it spreads, Joan Donovan didn't start out doing that. She was trained as a sociologist².

    现在许多人花大量时间分析虚假信息及其传播方式，与他们一样，琼·多诺万起初并不是研究这个领域的。她接受的是社会学家的训练。

    Myself, I'm interested in sociology, and so I want to know how groups behave.

    我对社会学很感兴趣，我想了解群体行为方式。

    So I'm less inclined to talk about psychology³ or, you know, individual motivations to join certain political parties, but I can talk a lot and at length about all kinds of other garbage, but particularly about how things that we might consider soft messaging or persuasive⁴ messaging online is really having a strange effect on our politics.

    我不太愿意谈论心理学，比如，个人加入某个政党的动机，但是我可以详细地谈论各种类型的垃圾信息，尤其是网络上的软消息或说服性消息是如何对我们的政治产生不可思议的后果的。

    And we're starting to see ideas that used to be considered very, very fringe moving closer and closer to the mainstream⁵. And so some of...

    我们开始发现，那些曾经被认为非常边缘的想法越来越接近主流。所以有些......

    One of the things that she was looking at were white supremacists and how they were promoting ideas about DNA⁶ testing and how this -- sort of helping⁷ them gain traction⁸, because white supremacists in the United States are a lot bigger force than they were 10 years ago, 15 years ago.

    她关注的一个对象是白人至上主义者, 以及这些人是如何推广DNA测试的想法，以及这是如何帮助他们获得支持的，因为美国白人至上主义者的力量比10年前、15年前要大得多。

    And so what we need to do is to think about, "Well, how is social media going to prepare itself for the networking of white supremacists and when they build power and they show up offline at these events?"我们需要做的思考是，“社交媒体如何为白人至上主义者建立关系网做准备，以及他们何时在线上建立权力并在线下的活动中出现？”

    Are social media companies going to begin by trying to disrupt that infrastructure-building in the first place or do they wait till the violence happens and then provide that evidence to law enforcement? Unfortunately, what happens is...

    社交媒体公司是从一开始就试图破坏基础设施建设，等到暴力发生后再向执法部门提供证据吗？不幸的是，发生的事情是……And, you know, one of her core reasons for studying this is that all the tech companies promote what drives engagement, because engagement is what gets them eyeballs, and eyeballs is what gets them advertising⁹ money.

    她研究这个领域的一个核心原因是，所有的科技公司都在宣传什么能提高用户粘性，因为用户粘性就是吸引用户眼球，而吸引眼球能让科技公司赚到广告钱。

    Unfortunately, part of that dynamic is the extreme stuff, whether you love it or you hate it, is engaging.

    不幸的是，这种动态的一部分是极端内容，无论喜欢还是讨厌，这些内容都很吸引眼球。

1 analyzing   

v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析

参考例句：

• Analyzing the date of some socialist countries presents even greater problem s. 分析某些社会主义国家的统计数据，暴露出的问题甚至更大。 来自辞典例句
• He undoubtedly was not far off the mark in analyzing its predictions. 当然，他对其预测所作的分析倒也八九不离十。 来自辞典例句

2 sociologist   

n.研究社会学的人，社会学家

参考例句：

• His mother was a sociologist,researching socialism.他的母亲是个社会学家，研究社会主义。
• Max Weber is a great and outstanding sociologist.马克斯·韦伯是一位伟大的、杰出的社会学家。

3 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

4 persuasive   

adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的

参考例句：

• His arguments in favour of a new school are very persuasive.他赞成办一座新学校的理由很有说服力。
• The evidence was not really persuasive enough.证据并不是太有说服力。

5 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

6 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

7 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。

8 traction   

n.牵引；附着摩擦力

参考例句：

• I'll show you how the traction is applied.我会让你看如何做这种牵引。
• She's injured her back and is in traction for a month.她背部受伤，正在作一个月的牵引治疗。

9 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。