时代周刊 用户如何追究Facebook的责任(1)

HOW USERS CAN HOLD FACEBOOK ACCOUNTABLE

用户如何追究Facebook的责任

By Lisa Eadicicco

文/丽萨·埃迪奇科

It is not easy to protect 1.4 billion people every day.

每天要保护14亿人并不容易。

But if Facebook wants to be the home where all those people share their likes and heartbreaks and plans and politics with acquaintances online,

然而，如果Facebook想成为大家和网友分享喜好、心酸、计划以及讨论政治的港湾，

it had better try a lot harder.

那它还得狠狠地努力才行。

That was the thrust of the news on March 17,

这也正是3月17日新闻的主旨，

when the Observer of London and the New York Times revealed that analytics firm Cambridge Analytica improperly¹ obtained data from 50 million Facebook accounts.

当日，伦敦的《观察家报》和《纽约时报》披露，分析公司“剑桥分析”采取非正当首段获取了5000万Facebook账户的信息。

The company, which worked with both Senator Ted² Cruz and Donald Trump³ on their 2016 presidential campaigns,

该公司，2016年的总统竞选活动期间曾与参议员特德·克鲁兹和唐纳德·特朗普密切合作，

then attempted to build psychological profiles of potential voters — with the hopes of using them to determine whom to target.

当时是想建立潜在选民的心理资料——希望利用这些资料来确定拉拢对象。

But in this case, unlike other recent privacy breakdowns⁴ — like the Equifax data breach⁵ that put 145.5 million accounts at risk — thieves or hackers⁶ did not steal information.

然而，在这次的情况中，不同于近期的其他隐私事故——比如将1.455亿账户暴露在危险之下的艾奎法克斯数据泄露事件——窃贼或黑客并没有窃取用户们的信息。

The company actually just handed the data over, then didn’t watch where it went.

实际上，该公司只是把数据上交了，之后却没有监管数据去了哪里。

As Facebook itself reported,

正如Facebook自己指出的那样，

Aleksandr Kogan, the academic researcher who first obtained the information through an app he developed,

压力山大·科根，通过自己开发的应用最先获取了那些信息的学术研究员，

did so “in a legitimate⁷ way and through proper channels” and violated Facebook’s policies only when he passed it on to Cambridge Analytica.

是“以合法的方式并通过适当的渠道”获取的资料，只是在将信息交给“剑桥分析”后才违反了Facebook的政策。

The social network was also under the impression until recently that the harvested data had been deleted,

直到最近，该社交网络一直以为获得的数据已经删除了，

but the Times says it has viewed a set of it.

但《泰晤士报》表示他们已经看过一组数据了。

Right now, it’s not clear who else can see the data.

目前，还有谁能看到那些数据尚不清楚。

All This has prompted sharp criticism of the company,

这一切都引起了人们对该公司的尖锐批评，

which meticulously⁸ tracks its users but failed to keep track of where information about the lives and thinking of those people went.

因为它精心地跟踪用户的数据，却未能跟踪到有关这些人的生活和思考的信息最后去了哪里。

Facebook’s shares were down by 6.8% in the first business day after the reports.

报告发布后的第一个交易日，Facebook的股价下跌了6.8％。

Lawmakers in both the U.S. and Britain, where Cambridge Analytica did similar work ahead of the Brexit referendum,

美国和英国，英国脱欧公投前剑桥分析也做过类似的工作，的立法者们

have demanded testimony⁹ from Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg.

纷纷要求Facebook首席执行官马克·扎克伯格出面作证。

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general have reportedly begun investigations¹⁰.

据报道，美国联邦贸易委员会和州检察长已对此事展开调查。

On the site itself, many users mused¹¹, Why are we still here?

在Facebook网站上，许多用户都在思考，为什么我们还在用Facebook？

This all comes at a time when the company reported that it had seen a decrease in daily active users in the U.S. and Canada for the first time — from 185 million to 184 million — in the fourth quarter of 2017.

此事恰逢该公司报告该网站美国和加拿大每日活跃用户数量首次出现了下降——从1.85亿降至1.84亿人——时间为2017年第四季度。

1 improperly   

不正确地，不适当地

参考例句：

• Of course it was acting improperly. 这样做就是不对嘛！
• He is trying to improperly influence a witness. 他在试图误导证人。

2 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

3 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

4 breakdowns   

n.分解( breakdown的名词复数 )；衰竭；（车辆或机器的）损坏；统计分析

参考例句：

• Her old car was unreliable, so the trip was plagued by breakdowns. 她的旧车老不听使唤，一路上总是出故障。 来自辞典例句
• How do we prevent these continual breakdowns? 我们如何防止这些一再出现的故障？ 来自辞典例句

5 breach   

n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破

参考例句：

• We won't have any breach of discipline.我们不允许任何破坏纪律的现象。
• He was sued for breach of contract.他因不履行合同而被起诉。

6 hackers   

n.计算机迷( hacker的名词复数 )；私自存取或篡改电脑资料者，电脑“黑客”

参考例句：

• They think of viruses that infect an organization from the outside.They envision hackers breaking into their information vaults. 他们考虑来自外部的感染公司的病毒，他们设想黑客侵入到信息宝库中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks againoff-again email exchanges. 通过几星期电子邮件往来安排见面，他们最终同意了。 来自互联网

7 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

8 meticulously   

adv.过细地，异常细致地；无微不至；精心

参考例句：

• The hammer's silvery head was etched with holy runs and its haft was meticulously wrapped in blue leather. 锤子头是纯银制成的，雕刻着神圣符文，而握柄则被精心地包裹在蓝色的皮革中。 来自辞典例句
• She is always meticulously accurate in punctuation and spelling. 她的标点和拼写总是非常精确。 来自辞典例句

9 testimony   

n.证词；见证，证明

参考例句：

• The testimony given by him is dubious.他所作的证据是可疑的。
• He was called in to bear testimony to what the police officer said.他被传入为警官所说的话作证。

10 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

11 mused   

v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事）

参考例句：

• \"I wonder if I shall ever see them again, \"he mused. “我不知道是否还可以再见到他们，”他沉思自问。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• \"Where are we going from here?\" mused one of Rutherford's guests. 卢瑟福的一位客人忍不住说道：‘我们这是在干什么？” 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史