美国国家公共电台 NPR Facebook Updates Community Standards, Expands Appeals Process

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Facebook says it will be more open about the posts it takes down. The company tells NPR that today it is publishing internal details of its community standards. That's the term for what's allowed on Facebook and what is not. Monika Bickert is a Facebook vice¹ president.

MONIKA BICKERT: So we've always had a set of community standards that the public can see that explain, for instance, no harassment², no bullying³, no terror propaganda. But now we're actually explaining how we define those terms for our review teams and how we enforce those policies.

INSKEEP: She says users want more openness, which is an understatement. The company is under unprecedented⁴ pressure. It's been roiled⁵ by two years of questions - which news did it promote during the last election? How widely did it share users' data? - and more. Now it is revealing definitions used by internal monitors who check up on complaints about posts around the world, like, what exactly constitutes a genuine death threat? If it names a person, location or weapon, that should come down. Or what exactly amounts to hate speech?

BICKERT: Where we have drawn⁶ the line is that we will allow attacks or negative commentary about institutions or countries or religions, but we don't allow attacks against people. So if somebody is criticizing or attacking all members of a religion, that's where we would draw the line.

INSKEEP: I wonder if one of the gray areas there might be someone who criticizes Islam but in an extreme way that somebody might argue is inciting⁷ people against Muslims.

BICKERT: We do try to allow as much speech as possible about institutions, religions, countries, and we know sometimes that might make people uncomfortable. That's one of the reasons we give people a lot of choice and control over what they see on Facebook. You can unfollow pages, you can unfollow people, and you can block people that you don't want to communicate with.

INSKEEP: How are you thinking about the environment as the 2018 election approaches and, of course, there will once again be lots of political speech on Facebook?

BICKERT: Well, we know there are a lot of very serious issues, and it's important to get them right. We're focused on combating fake news. We're also focused on providing increased transparency into political advertisements and pages that have political content. And we're also investing a lot in our technical tools that help keep inauthentic accounts off the site.

INSKEEP: Are you already going after fake accounts in that larger, more specific way in the United States here in 2018?

BICKERT: Yes. The tools that we have developed to more effectively catch fake accounts - they've improved a lot, and we are using them globally. We now are able to stop more than a million fake accounts at the time of creation every day.

INSKEEP: The publication of its internal standards is another signal that Facebook is having to acknowledge that it is effectively a publisher. It wants to find itself as a technology company, just a platform for other people's speech, but the founder⁸, Mark Zuckerberg, now accepts some responsibility for what is posted. Facebook was embarrassed when a famous old Vietnam War photo was mistakenly censored⁹ and then put back up. It's also had to tussle¹⁰ with authoritarian¹¹ governments like Russia and Turkey that demand some posts be taken down. Just last weekend, Sri Lankan officials complained to The New York Times that Facebook was not responsive enough to complaints of hate speech. Monika Bickert says that when pressured by governments, the company at least tries to keep up speech that meets its standards.

What does this announcement suggest about the power your company has?

BICKERT: I think what it suggests is that we really want to respond to what the community wants. What we're hearing is that they want more clarity, and they want to know how we enforce these rules. That's why we're doing this. And we're actually hopeful that this is going to spark a conversation.

INSKEEP: But this is also a reminder¹², you've got this enormous fire hose of speech, maybe the world's largest fire hose of speech, and you can turn that fire hose on or off. It's your choice.

BICKERT: I want to be very clear that when we make these policies, we don't do it in a vacuum. This is not my team sitting in a room in California saying, these will be the policies. Every time we adjust a policy, we have external input¹³ from experts around the world.

INSKEEP: The company that claims some 2 billion users around the world insists it is straining to work within the laws of every country while still allowing as much speech as it can.

1 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

2 harassment   

n.骚扰，扰乱，烦恼，烦乱

参考例句：

• She often got telephone harassment at night these days.这些天她经常在夜晚受到电话骚扰。
• The company prohibits any form of harassment.公司禁止任何形式的骚扰行为。

3 bullying   

v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈

参考例句：

• Many cases of bullying go unreported . 很多恐吓案件都没有人告发。
• All cases of bullying will be severely dealt with. 所有以大欺小的情况都将受到严肃处理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

5 roiled   

v.搅混（液体）( roil的过去式和过去分词 )；使烦恼；使不安；使生气

参考例句：

• American society is being roiled by the controversy over homosexual marriage. 当今美国社会正被有关同性恋婚姻的争论搞得不得安宁。 来自互联网
• In the past few months, instability has roiled Tibet and Tibetan-inhabited areas. 在过去的几个月里，西藏和藏人居住区不稳定。 来自互联网

6 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

7 inciting   

刺激的，煽动的

参考例句：

• What are you up to inciting mutiny and insubordination? 你们干吗在这里煽动骚动的叛乱呀。
• He was charged with inciting people to rebel. 他被控煽动民众起来叛乱。

8 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。

9 censored   

受审查的，被删剪的

参考例句：

• The news reports had been heavily censored . 这些新闻报道已被大幅删剪。
• The military-backed government has heavily censored the news. 有军方撑腰的政府对新闻进行了严格审查。

10 tussle   

n.&v.扭打，搏斗，争辩

参考例句：

• They began to tussle with each other for the handgun.他们互相扭打起来，抢夺那支手枪。
• We are engaged in a legal tussle with a large pharmaceutical company.我们正同一家大制药公司闹法律纠纷。

11 authoritarian   

n./adj.专制(的)，专制主义者，独裁主义者

参考例句：

• Foreign diplomats suspect him of authoritarian tendencies.各国外交官怀疑他有着独裁主义倾向。
• The authoritarian policy wasn't proved to be a success.独裁主义的政策证明并不成功。

12 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

13 input   

n.输入(物)；投入；vt.把(数据等)输入计算机

参考例句：

• I will forever be grateful for his considerable input.我将永远感激他的大量投入。
• All this information had to be input onto the computer.所有这些信息都必须输入计算机。