美国国家公共电台 NPR How Russian Twitter Bots Pumped Out Fake News During The 2016 Election

 

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

If the story of Russian influence in the 2016 election makes you uneasy, Clint Watts¹ will not make you feel much better. The former FBI agent is now a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week. He says Russia had used people and bots to pump out fake news hoping to influence voters. And when I talked to him earlier today, he said Russian misinformation campaign did not stop with the election of President Trump².

CLINT WATTS: If you went online today, you could see these accounts - either bots or actual personas somewhere - that are trying to connect with the administration. They might broadcast stories and then follow up with another tweet that tries to gain the president's attention, or they'll try and answer the tweets that the president puts out.

MCEVERS: Can you give us an example of a recent account that did that or a piece of information that was sent that way?

WATTS: It's a circular system. Sometimes the propaganda outlets⁴ themselves will put out false or manipulated stories. Other times, the president will go with a conspiracy⁵, for example, wiretapping. When they do that, they'll then respond to the wiretapping claim with further conspiracy theories about that claim. And then it just amplifies⁶ the message in the ecosystem⁷.

MCEVERS: And you mean - when you say wiretapping, you mean the president's claim on Twitter that he was wiretapped at Trump Tower during the campaign by the Obama administration?

WATTS: Exactly. Every time a conspiracy is floated from the administration, it provides every outlet³ around the world, in fact, an opportunity to amplify⁸ that conspiracy and to add more manipulated truths or falsehoods onto it.

MCEVERS: So it sounds like just like this constant feedback loop? You don't even know where the conspiracy began at some point.

WATTS: That's right. You don't know where it started. You don't know if it comes from the administration or if the administration picked it up from another outlet, which is part of the debate if you remember back when that claim came out. Did he hear that inside the government, or did that actually come from his news feed? And it sounds like the latter, it came from his news feed.

MCEVERS: What is your sense of like how centralized this is? Is it coming from one place, or is it possible that it's very diffuse⁹ and coming from a lot of different places?

WATTS: I think it's a very diffuse network where you have competing efforts, even amongst hackers¹⁰, between different parts of Russian intelligence and propagandas, all with general guidelines about what to pursue but doing it at different times and paces and rhythms.

MCEVERS: I was going to say, it sounds like it's diffuse perhaps at the guidance of a centralized power.

WATTS: Yeah. It's diffuse by design.

MCEVERS: How long have you been tracking this kind of activity by the Russians?

WATTS: A little over three years.

MCEVERS: I mean, did your gut¹¹ tell you even early on that this is something really serious? You know, I know that the White House has said that this is just sour grapes by Democrats¹² trying to explain why they lost an election. Do you think it's something bigger than that?

WATTS: It's way bigger. What was being done by nation states in the social media influence landscape was so much more significant than the other things that were being talked about. If you remember in 2014 and '15, we were talking about the Islamic State's rise and how they would use social media to recruit young people. That's how we came onto this.

But when we watched the sophistication, that's when we were really fascinated by what was going on. And it's hard to detect. And therefore, it's also hard for people to get really a good understanding of. And I'm glad to see that discussion come in today.

MCEVERS: And there are three investigations¹³ going on - the Senate Intelligence Committee, the House Intelligence Committee and of course at the FBI - of this issue of, of Russian influence in the U.S. elections. Do you have confidence in those investigations?

WATTS: I think I have confidence in two of the three. But I have to say, the Senate's Intelligence Committee when I testified last week was amazing. It was exactly what I think America needs and also what is expected of senators, which is to rise above and be that check and balance on the U.S. government.

And in terms of the FBI, I have complete confidence. Don't take silence for them being inept¹⁴. That's very much untrue. What they do is they are deliberate. They gather facts. And they don't talk about it. They're not open about these discussions. And they don't reveal anything till they can make good conclusions.

MCEVERS: Clint Watts, former FBI agent and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Thank you very much.

WATTS: Thank you.

1 watts   

（电力计量单位）瓦，瓦特( watt的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• My lamp uses 60 watts; my toaster uses 600 watts. 我的灯用60瓦，我的烤面包器用600瓦。
• My lamp uses 40 watts. 我的灯40瓦。

2 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。

3 outlet   

n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄

参考例句：

• The outlet of a water pipe was blocked.水管的出水口堵住了。
• Running is a good outlet for his energy.跑步是他发泄过剩精力的好方法。

4 outlets   

n.出口( outlet的名词复数 )；经销店；插座；廉价经销店

参考例句：

• The dumping of foreign cotton blocked outlets for locally grown cotton. 外国棉花的倾销阻滞了当地生产的棉花的销路。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They must find outlets for their products. 他们必须为自己的产品寻找出路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

6 amplifies   

放大，扩大( amplify的第三人称单数 )； 增强； 详述

参考例句：

• Gain is the number of times the amplifier amplifies a signal. 增益就是放大器放大信号的倍数。
• Such panicky behaviour amplifies the impact of the Russian export ban. 这样的恐慌行为放大了俄罗斯小麦出口禁令的影响效应。

7 ecosystem   

n.生态系统

参考例句：

• This destroyed the ecosystem of the island.这样破坏了岛上的生态系统。
• We all have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem.维持生态系统的完整是我们共同的利益。

8 amplify   

vt.放大，增强；详述，详加解说

参考例句：

• The new manager wants to amplify the company.新经理想要扩大公司。
• Please amplify your remarks by giving us some examples.请举例详述你的话。

9 diffuse   

v.扩散；传播；adj.冗长的；四散的，弥漫的

参考例句：

• Direct light is better for reading than diffuse light.直射光比漫射光更有利于阅读。
• His talk was so diffuse that I missed his point.他的谈话漫无边际，我抓不住他的要点。

10 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

11 gut   

n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏

参考例句：

• It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.冷冻鱼之前并不总是需要先把内脏掏空。
• My immediate gut feeling was to refuse.我本能的直接反应是拒绝。

12 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 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。

14 inept   

adj.不恰当的，荒谬的，拙劣的

参考例句：

• Whan an inept remark to make on such a formal occasion.在如此正式的场合，怎么说这样不恰当的话。
• He's quite inept at tennis.他打网球太笨。