纽约时报 沙特部署网络水军 专门扼杀哈苏吉等批判人士(2)（在线收听）

One arm of the crackdown on dissidents originates from offices and homes in and around Riyadh,

镇压异见人士的行动一部分来自利雅得及周边地区的办公室和家庭，

where hundreds of young men hunt on Twitter for voices and conversations to silence.

在那里，数以百计的年轻人在推特上搜寻他们要压制的言论和对话。

This is the troll farm, described by three people briefed on the project and the messages among group members.

这就是三位该项目以及内部成员之间传阅的资料的知情人士描述过的那个“巨魔农场”。

Its directors routinely discuss ways to combat dissent, settling on sensitive themes like the war in Yemen or women’s rights.

农场的负责人会按时跟那些人讨论如何打击异议，如何应对也门战争或妇女权利这样的敏感话题。

They then turn to their well-organized army of “social media specialists” via group chats in apps like WhatsApp and Telegram,

之后，他们便通过WhatsApp和Telegram等应用的群聊，向其麾下组织良好的“社交媒体专家”队伍下达任务，

sending them lists of people to threaten, insult and intimidate; daily tweet quotas to fill; and pro-government messages to augment.

分发他们需要威胁，侮辱或恐吓的人员名单；每日需要完成的推特定额；以及需要他们吹嘘的亲政府信息。

The bosses also send memes that their employees can use to mock dissenters,

头目们还会给员工发讽刺异见人士的表情包，

like an image of Crown Prince Mohammed dancing with a sword,

比如王储穆罕默德舞剑的表情包，

akin to the cartoons of Pepe the Frog that supporters of President Trump used to undermine opponents.

该表情包与特朗普的支持者们用来打击对手的青蛙佩佩漫画如出一辙。

The specialists scour Twitter for conversations on the assigned topics and post messages from the several accounts they each run.

这些专家会对推特上指定主题的相关对话进行彻底搜索，并用他们各自运营的多个账户发布各种消息。

Sometimes, when contentious discussions take off,

有时，当颇具争议的话题讨论非常热烈时，

they publish pornographic images to goose engagement with their own posts and distract users from more relevant conversations.

他们就会发布色情图片，将大家吸引过去参与他们的互动，从而转移用户对更多相关对话的注意力。

Other times, if one account is blocked by too many other users, they simply close it and open a new one.

其他时候，如果一个帐户被太多其他用户屏蔽了，他们就直接关掉那个账户重开一个。

In one conversation viewed by The Times,

《泰晤士报》看到的一个对话中，

dozens of leaders decided to mute critics of Saudi Arabia’s military attacks on Yemen by reporting the messages to Twitter as “sensitive.”

数十名领导人一致决定压制那些批判沙特对也门发动军事袭击的人士，将那些人的信息以“内容敏感”为由举报给推特官方。

Such reported posts are one of the things Twitter considers as signals when it decides to hide content from other users, blunting its impact.

这类举报的贴文只是推特认为他们决定隐藏内容以免其他用户看到从而削弱其影响力的信号之一。

Twitter has had difficulty combating the trolls.

那些巨魔推特很难对付。

The company can detect and disable the machine-like behaviors of bot accounts,

推特能够检测到机器人账户的机械行为并使其失效，

but it has a harder time picking up on the humans tweeting on behalf of the Saudi government.

但它很难识别代表沙特政府的人为发布的推文。

The specialists found the jobs through Twitter itself,

那些专家恰好都是看了推特上的广告找到的工作，

responding to ads that said only that an employer sought young men willing to tweet for about 10,000 Saudi riyals a month, equivalent to about $3,000.

而那些广告的内容只说了某雇主需要愿意发推文的年轻男子，月薪1万里亚尔，约3000美元。

The political nature of the work was revealed only after they were interviewed and expressed interest in the job.

只有在他们接受面试并表达了对这项工作的兴趣后他们才会被告知这份工作的政治性。

According to the people The Times interviewed,

据接受《泰晤士报》采访的人士，

some of the specialists felt they would have been targeted as possible dissenters themselves if they had turned down the job.

一些专家感觉到如果他们拒绝这份工作，他们自己便可能被当做异见人士对待。

The specialists heard directors speak often of Mr. Qahtani.

那些专家经常听到他们的负责人提及卡塔尼先生。

Labeled by activists and writers as the “troll master,” “Saudi Arabia’s Steve Bannon” and “lord of the flies” —

卡塔尼先生，经常被活动家和作家称之为“巨魔之主”，“沙特阿拉伯的史蒂夫·班农”或“蝇王”——

for the bots and online attackers sometimes called “flies” by their victims —

因为机器人和网络攻击者有时会被他们的受害者称为“苍蝇”——

Mr. Qahtani had gained influence since the young crown prince consolidated power.

是在年轻的王储开始巩固权力之后声名鹊起的。