时代周刊:国会能控制住大型科技公司吗?(1)

CAN CONGRESS REIN¹ IN BIG TECH?

国会能控制住大型科技公司吗?

Washington has been happy to let high-tech² companies police themselves—until now

华盛顿一直乐于让高科技公司自我监督——到现在为止

ABOUT TWO HOURS INTO A SENATE HEARING ON April 10,

4月10日，参议院听证会进行到大约两个小时之后，

Mark Zuckerberg was asked if he would like to take a break.

马克·扎克伯格被问及是否要休息一下。

He was in the midst of a rare spectacle: two powerful committees, with a total of 44 Senators,

当时，他正罕见地被围绕在一大群人中间：两个权威的委员会，总44名参议员，

were holding a joint³ hearing to grill⁴ a single CEO.

正在举行一场联合听证会，盘问这位CEO。

So when Zuckerberg responded by saying he wasn’t tired yet, the packed room broke into laughter.

当扎克伯格回应说他还不累的时候，满屋子的人都哄堂大笑起来。

The levity⁵ didn’t last long.

但这种轻松的氛围并没有持续多久。

“What happened here was, in effect, willful blindness,”

“这次的问题实质上是某些人故意视而不见的引起的问题，”

said Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, the next at bat, as he pressed the 33-year-old Facebook founder⁶

针对名为“剑桥分析”的政治营销公司如何在未经用户同意的情况下，获得了将近8700万用户的个人数据这一问题，

on exactly how a political marketing⁷ firm called Cambridge Analytica ended up with data from some 87 million users’ proiles without their consent.

接下来发问的康涅狄格州参议员理查德·布卢门撒尔在向这位33岁的Facebook创始人施压时说到。

“It was heedless,” he went on, “and reckless.”

“这种做法不仅轻率，”他接着说，“而且鲁莽。”

In Silicon⁸ Valley, heedlessness and recklessness have traditionally been seen as virtues—

“轻率”和“鲁莽”历来是被硅谷人视为美德——

Facebook’s early internal rallying cry was “move fast and break things”—

Facebook早期的内部口号就是“快速行动，打破陈规”——

and necessary precursors⁹ for innovation.

视为创新必要的先驱的。

But a long-simmering reality check is coming to a head across the high-tech industry.

然而，一场酝酿已久的现实对这一理念的检验，正在对整个高科技行业产生重大影响。

While privacy concerns and even large-scale data breaches¹⁰ are nothing new,

尽管有关隐私甚至是大规模的数据泄露的问题都早已不是什么新鲜事了，

experts say the fracas¹¹ at Facebook has brought the dilemma¹² of increasingly powerful technology into better focus.

专家表示，有关Facebook的大吵大闹还是引起了人们对日益强大的技术带来的困境的更多关注。

“Being these networked citizens of the world, it’s kind of a struggle, at times, to say why we care about privacy,”

“作为网络化的世界公民，有时，很难说我们为什么要关心隐私，”

says Urs Gasser, executive director at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.

哈佛大学伯克曼克莱因互联网与社会中心执行董事乌尔斯·加塞说。

“But in this case, there is this element that the data about us is suddenly used to manipulate us in our decisionmaking and somehow mess with our democracy.”

“但这次的问题还有这样的一面：我们的数据突然被用来操纵我们的决策，甚至扰乱起我们的民主了。”

The concerns go beyond social networking.

这类担忧已经不再局限于社交网络的范畴了。

Over two days at two hearings in both chambers¹³,

在两天的参众两院听证会上，

members of Congress aired grievances¹⁴ not just about Zuckerberg’s company but also the ills of Google and Twitter,

国会议员们不仅表达了对扎克伯格公司的不满，也表达了对谷歌和推特存在的问题，

the lack of diversity in the industry and the lack of rural fiber-optic cable.

互联网行业缺乏多样性，农村缺乏光纤等问题的不满。

In calls for closer scrutiny¹⁵ of firms from Apple to Amazon, some see a coming “techlash.”

在呼吁对苹果到亚马逊之类的公司进行更严格的审查的呼声中，有人预见到一场“技术冲击”即将到来。

And by the time he appeared on Capitol Hill, Zuckerberg seemed to have grasped that.

出现在国会山时，扎克伯格似乎就已经明白了这一点。

“As Facebook has grown, people everywhere have gotten a powerful new tool for staying connected,” he said.

“随着Facebook的发展，世界各地的人们都有了一个强大的，用来和朋友保持联系的新工具，”他说。

“But it’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well.”

“但很明显，我们在防止这些工具被恶意利用方面做得还不够。”

1 rein   

n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治

参考例句：

• The horse answered to the slightest pull on the rein.只要缰绳轻轻一拉,马就作出反应。
• He never drew rein for a moment till he reached the river.他一刻不停地一直跑到河边。

2 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

3 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

4 grill   

n.烤架，铁格子，烤肉；v.烧，烤，严加盘问

参考例句：

• Put it under the grill for a minute to brown the top.放在烤架下烤一分钟把上面烤成金黄色。
• I'll grill you some mutton.我来给你烤一些羊肉吃。

5 levity   

n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变

参考例句：

• His remarks injected a note of levity into the proceedings.他的话将一丝轻率带入了议事过程中。
• At the time,Arnold had disapproved of such levity.那时候的阿诺德对这种轻浮行为很看不惯。

6 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

7 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

8 silicon   

n.硅(旧名矽)

参考例句：

• This company pioneered the use of silicon chip.这家公司开创了使用硅片的方法。
• A chip is a piece of silicon about the size of a postage stamp.芯片就是一枚邮票大小的硅片。

9 precursors   

n.先驱( precursor的名词复数 )；先行者；先兆；初期形式

参考例句：

• Phenyl (or polyphenyl) substituted epoxides serve as excellent precursors to phenyl (or diphenyl) carbenes. 某些苯代（或多苯）环氧乙烷是制取带苯环（或二苯）碳烯的极好原料。 来自辞典例句
• Note the presence of megakaryocytes, erythroid islands, and granulocytic precursors. 可见巨核细胞，红细胞岛和粒细胞前体细胞。 来自互联网

10 breaches   

破坏( breach的名词复数 )； 破裂； 缺口； 违背

参考例句：

• He imposed heavy penalties for breaches of oath or pledges. 他对违反誓言和保证的行为给予严厉的惩罚。
• This renders all breaches of morality before marriage very uncommon. 这样一来，婚前败坏道德的事就少见了。

11 fracas   

n.打架；吵闹

参考例句：

• A couple of mobsters were rubbed out in a fracas with the law.几个暴徒在与警方喧闹的斗争中丧命。
• The police were called in to stop the fracas.警察奉命去制止骚乱。

12 dilemma   

n.困境，进退两难的局面

参考例句：

• I am on the horns of a dilemma about the matter.这件事使我进退两难。
• He was thrown into a dilemma.他陷入困境。

13 chambers   

n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅

参考例句：

• The body will be removed into one of the cold storage chambers. 尸体将被移到一个冷冻间里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mr Chambers's readable book concentrates on the middle passage: the time Ransome spent in Russia. Chambers先生的这本值得一看的书重点在中间：Ransome在俄国的那几年。 来自互联网

14 grievances   

n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚

参考例句：

• The trade union leader spoke about the grievances of the workers. 工会领袖述说工人们的苦情。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He gave air to his grievances. 他申诉了他的冤情。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 scrutiny   

n.详细检查，仔细观察

参考例句：

• His work looks all right,but it will not bear scrutiny.他的工作似乎很好，但是经不起仔细检查。
• Few wives in their forties can weather such a scrutiny.很少年过四十的妻子经得起这么仔细的观察。