商业周刊:脸书真的在泄露公众隐私吗?(2)

A current plan involves merging¹ the background messaging functions of the other apps it owns (Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger) so people can send chats among services.

脸书当前的计划涉及合并其拥有的其他应用（Instagram，WhatsApp和Facebook Messenger）的后台在线留言功能，这样人们可以在不同的应用服务之间聊天。

Facebook says it will encrypt the messages so that only senders and receivers can see them.

脸书表示，它将对这些信息进行加密，只有信息的收发方才能看到它们。

What it doesn't say is that making messaging possible across all the different accounts would make it easier for it to know who's who

但它没说的是，让所有不同账户都可以相互发送信息，就更容易知道彼此的身份，

—that a certain WhatsApp number and anonymous² Instagram profile correspond to a real identity on Facebook.

因为某个WhatsApp号码和匿名Instagram个人资料都与脸书上用户的真实身份相对应。

Confirming users' identities across apps would strengthen Facebook's ad business, especially by helping³ it target people who are starting to use Facebook less and Instagram more.

确认用户在不同应用中的身份将增强脸书的广告业务，特别是帮助找到那些开始减少使用脸书，而更多使用Instagram的用户。

This has the potential to yield perverse⁴ outcomes: Users will still see separately branded apps,

这有可能产生有害的结果，即用户仍会看到单独品牌的应用，

but Facebook might start to recommend, for example, that parents follow their closeted teens' secret anonymous Instagram accounts.

但脸书可能会开始建议，比如让父母关注他们十几岁的孩子使用的隐秘的匿名Instagram帐户。

On a Jan. 30 earnings⁵ call with investors⁶, Zuckerberg didn't deny a commercial benefit to merging the apps' back-end processes.

在1月30日与投资者召开的电话财报会议上，扎克伯格并未否认合并应用后端流程会带来的商业利益。

He just said, "that isn't a big focus here." Facebook regularly uses privacy and security as justifications⁷ for changes that benefit the company in other ways.

他只是提到：“这不是重点。” 脸书经常以隐私和安全作为调整的理由，从而以其他方式使公司受益。

Last year, Zuckerberg told Congress his team had to track nonusers around the internet for ambiguous security purposes

去年，扎克伯格告诉国会，他的团队出于一些并不明确的安全目的必须跟踪互联网上的非应用使用者，

and only later admitted that it also used that data to target those people with ads pitching Facebook.

后来他们才承认，他们还使用这些数据找到那些在脸书上投放广告的人。

The company recently got rid of tools that allowed outside developers to automatically collect public information from its user base.

最近，该公司放弃使用允许外部开发人员自动从其用户群收集公共信息的工具。

That may stop bad actors, but it also stops researchers and journalists from studying the influence of propaganda across its network.

这可能会阻止不良行为者，但也阻止了研究人员和新闻工作者研究其网络宣传的影响力。

In January, Facebook's changes rendered inoperable a database of its political ads produced by investigative journalists at ProPublica.

今年1月，脸书进行的调整使ProPublica新闻工作室进行深入调查的记者所生成的政治广告数据库无法运行。

Now the only source of the information is Facebook's own archive.

现在，唯一的信息来源就是脸书自己的档案。

1 merging   

合并（分类）

参考例句：

• Many companies continued to grow by merging with or buying competing firms. 许多公司通过合并或收买竞争对手的公司而不断扩大。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• To sequence by repeated splitting and merging. 用反复分开和合并的方法进行的排序。

2 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

3 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

4 perverse   

adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的

参考例句：

• It would be perverse to stop this healthy trend.阻止这种健康发展的趋势是没有道理的。
• She gets a perverse satisfaction from making other people embarrassed.她有一种不正常的心态，以使别人难堪来取乐。

5 earnings   

n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得

参考例句：

• That old man lives on the earnings of his daughter.那个老人靠他女儿的收入维持生活。
• Last year there was a 20% decrease in his earnings.去年他的收入减少了20%。

6 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

7 justifications   

正当的理由，辩解的理由( justification的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• If he a vulgar person, she does not have justifications for him. 如果他是个低级趣味的人，她早就不会理他了。
• It depends on their effect on competition and possible justifications. 这则取决于它们对于竞争的影响和可能存在的正当抗辩理由。