2021年经济学人 Facebook改名意味着什么？（在线收听）

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商业

A makeover at Facebook? -- About-face

Facebook的改头换面？——彻底改变

A rumoured name-change reflects ambition -- and weakness

传闻中的更名展现了雄心——和弱点

Worth nearly $1trn, Facebook is the world’s sixth-most-valuable company.

Facebook市值近1万亿美元，是世界第六大最有价值的公司。

Its revenues have grown by 56% in the past year, and its share price by more than a quarter.

在过去的一年里，它的营收增长了56%，其股价上涨了四分之一以上。

Nearly 3bn people use its products every month.

每月有近30亿用户使用其产品。

Why would such a glittering success change its name, as the Verge, a news site, reports it plans to within days?

一家如此辉煌如此成功的公司，为什么要像新闻网站The Verge报道的那样，计划在几天内更名呢？

The likely official reason for the rebranding, which Facebook has not confirmed, is that the firm has outgrown the social network that Mark Zuckerberg started 17 years ago in a Harvard dorm.

Facebook更名的官方原因可能是，该公司已经发展得过于庞大，不再是马克·扎克伯格17年前在哈佛大学宿舍创立的社交网络了。Facebook尚未证实这一点。

Today it encompasses other social apps (Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger) and video hardware (Oculus, Portal).

如今，它涵盖了其他社交应用(Instagram、WhatsApp、Messenger)和视频硬件(Oculus、Portal)。

It has launched a digital wallet (Novi) and may yet offer a currency (Diem).

它已经推出了数字钱包(Novi)，并且还可能发行货币(Diem)。

Mr Zuckerberg expects people eventually to associate his firm more with the “metaverse”, a virtual space for work, play and more, than with social media.

扎克伯格期望人们最终更多地将他的公司与“元宇宙”（一个用于工作、娱乐和其他活动的虚拟空间）联系在一起，而不是与社交媒体联系在一起。

This week Facebook said it would hire 10,000 people to work on the metaverse.

本周，Facebook表示将雇佣1万人来从事元宇宙相关工作。

If the Facebook network is to take a back seat, there may be a case for regrouping under a new name.

如果说Facebook社交网络要退居次位，或许就有理由用一个新名称进行重组了。

Facebook wouldn’t be the first tech titan to do so.

Facebook并不是第一家这样做的科技巨头。

In 2015 Google set up Alphabet, a holding company for the search engine and its many side projects.

2015年，谷歌成立了Alphabet，这是一家负责搜索引擎及其许多辅助项目的控股公司。

Under this model, Facebook would become just another app within a wider family, albeit by far its biggest earner.

在这种模式下，Facebook将成为一个庞大家族中的又一个应用软件，尽管它是到目前为止最赚钱的一个。

There is another, less flattering possible motive for a makeover.

改名还有另一个可能的动机，听起来不那么讨人喜欢。

For all its pecuniary success, the Facebook brand has become tarnished.

尽管Facebook在金钱上取得了巨大成功，但它的品牌形象已蒙上污点。

The social network is blamed for stoking everything from teenage anorexia to insurrection at the US Capitol.

这个社交网络被指责煽动了所有事件，从青少年厌食症到美国国会大厦的暴动。

This month Frances Haugen, a former employee, told Congress that Facebook was failing to moderate content on its platform and covering up a drop in young American users (it denies this).

这个月，前雇员弗朗西斯·豪根告诉国会，Facebook未能管控其平台上的内容，并且掩盖了美国年轻用户减少的事实（Facebook否认了这一点）。

Public trust in it is lower than in most tech giants, and falling.

公众对Facebook的信任度低于大多数科技巨头，而且还在持续下降。

Although two years ago the firm started branding its apps as being “from Facebook”, its new “smart glasses”, which can record video and take phone calls, feature only the logo of its partner, Ray-Ban.

尽管该公司在两年前就开始给其应用程序打上“来自Facebook”的标签，但其可以录视频和打电话的新型“智能眼镜”上只有其合作伙伴Ray-Ban的标志。

Facebook investors seem untroubled.

Facebook的投资者似乎并未受到困扰。

But its social apps’ growing toxicity threaten to poison its other projects.

但其社交应用程序日益增长的差评可能会毒害它的其他项目。

On October 19th Democratic senators signed a letter arguing that Novi and Diem should be scrapped, since “Facebook cannot be trusted to manage a payment system or digital currency when its existing ability to manage risks and keep consumers safe has proven wholly insufficient.”

10月19日，民主党参议员签署了一封信，主张应该废除Novi和Diem，因为“当事实证明Facebook现有的风险管理和保障消费者安全的能力完全不足时，不能信由它来管理支付系统或数字货币。”

Mr Zuckerberg himself has been a lightning rod for much of the criticism of Facebook, and of bossy tech firms more generally.

扎克伯格本人一直承受着许多对Facebook的批评，大多批评Facebook是个专横霸道的科技公司。

As the all-powerful founder, he has a higher profile than his opposite numbers at TikTok, YouTube and other social networks.

作为拥有最多权力的创始人，他的知名度比TikTok、YouTube和其他社交网络同行更高。

Normally, a brand facing a reputational crisis might dump its unpopular CEO.

通常情况下，一个面临声誉危机的品牌可能会抛弃其不受欢迎的首席执行官。

But Mr Zuckerberg’s position is unassailable, which may explain why he would want to dump the brand instead.

但扎克伯格的地位是无法撼动的，这或许可以解释他为什么转而想要抛弃这个品牌的名字。