与假新闻作战，Facebook责无旁贷

Friday night, the Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg went on his vast social network to convince an expanding chorus of critics — including the departing president of the United States — that he honest-to-goodness wants to combat the “fake news” that is running wild across his site and others, and turning our politics into a paranoiac fantasy come to life.

面对不断增多、声音渐趋一致的批评者——包括即将离任的美国总统，Facebook联合创始人马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)上周五晚上在自己的这个庞大的社交网络上试图让大家相信，他真的想对抗他的网站和其他地方遍布的“假新闻”。后者正把我们的政治变成一个付诸实现的偏执狂幻想。

“We’ve been working on this problem for a long time and we take this responsibility seriously,” he wrote.

“我们很早就已经在着手解决这个问题，我们把这项责任看得很重，”他写道。

“We’ve made significant progress, but there is more work to be done,” he continued, listing various steps Facebook was taking, like making it easier to report bad information and enlisting fact-checking organizations.

“我们已经取得了重大的进展，但还有更多工作需要做，”他接着写道，还列出了Facebook正在采取的各种措施，比如简化不良信息的举报，招募事实核查机构。

It was heartening to hear, especially after his earlier assertion that it was “crazy” to believe that misinformation on Facebook had affected the presidential election in any real way — despite copious evidence that it was disturbingly in the mix, whether it directly swung the result or not.

这听起来很让人振奋，尤其是考虑到他之前曾坚称，认为Facebook上的错误信息对总统选举产生了任何实质的影响，是“疯狂”的想法——尽管有大量证据证明，不管有没有直接影响大选结果，它都是令人不安的影响因素之一。

But as Zuckerberg went on to say that Facebook had to be careful not to mistakenly block “accurate content,” he added this: “We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves,” which was why he said Facebook would continue to rely on “our community and trusted third parties.”

不过，扎克伯格接着表示，Facebook必须小心避免错误地屏蔽“准确的内容”，并表示：“我们不想自己做事实的裁决者”，这也是为什么他说Facebook会继续依靠“自己的社区和可靠的第三方”。

His statement pointed up how much Facebook struggles to find the balance between its mission to be a free-expression utopia for its 1.8 billion users and its responsibility to protect them from all that is defamatory, dangerous (like terrorist propaganda) and untrue.

他的声明显示出Facebook在多么艰难地平衡自己的使命和责任。前者是做18亿用户的言论自由乌托邦，后者则是保护他们免受所有诽谤、危险(比如恐怖主义者的宣传)和不实信息的侵害。

But more to the point, it appeared to buy into the notion that truth is relative at a time when that notion has to finally go away. Do you really need an outside arbiter to determine whether a video suggesting — without basis — that Hillary Clinton was involved in John F. Kennedy Jr.'s fatal plane crash in 1999 should be allowed to stand? Really?

但更关键的是，Facebook似乎相信不存在绝对的真相，这个想法在此时此刻是需要摒弃的。如果一段视频无凭无据地提出，希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)与1999年导致小约翰·F·肯尼迪(John F. Kennedy Jr.)身亡的飞机坠毁事故有关，这样的东西真的需要一个外部仲裁者来决定是否该保留吗?真的吗?

Truth doesn’t need arbiters. It needs defenders. And it needs them now more than ever as the U.S. democracy staggers into its next uncertain phase.

真相不需要仲裁者。它需要捍卫者。在美国民主蹒跚步入下一个不确定的阶段时，它比以前任何时候都更需要捍卫者。

With a mainstream news media that works hard to separate fact from fiction under economic and political threat, Facebook — which has contributed to that economic threat by gobbling up so much of the online advertising market — is going to have a special responsibility to do its part.

主流媒体在经济与政治威胁之下正竭力将事实与虚构区分开，而这种经济威胁，多少与占据了网络广告市场相当份额的Facebook有关，因此它需要担负起一个特殊的责任。

Just imagine what things will look like if the unsavory elements that tore through the 2016 election — false narratives, fake news and aggressive efforts to delegitimize traditional journalism — come back into play as Donald Trump presses to enact his agenda.

想想看，如果撕裂2016年总统选举的那些令人讨厌的元素——虚假陈述、假新闻，以及旨在令传统新闻丧失权威的激进行动——在特朗普奋力推进其议程之际卷土重来，事情会变成什么样子?

If the past week provided any indication of where politics are going, the next four years are going to require an all-hands-on-deck effort to keep the national conversation honest.

如果说过去这一周透露出了有关政治走向的任何信息，那就是在未来四年里，各方都必须齐心协力，才能保证坦诚的全国性讨论。

The national security adviser Trump named last week, Michael T. Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, has subscribed to the conspiracy theory that Shariah law is taking root in the U.S. (it isn’t), contributing to his insistence that Americans have every reason to view Islam as “a threat.”

上周被特朗普提名为国家安全顾问的退役陆军中将迈克尔·T·弗林(Michael T. Flynn)，颇为认同伊斯兰教法正在美国扎根(其实并没有)的阴谋论，这会让他更加坚信美国完全有理由把伊斯兰教视为“一个威胁”。

He recently used Twitter to circulate a fake news item that the FBI was sitting on evidence from Anthony Weiner’s laptop that would “put Hillary and her crew away for life.”

他最近利用Twitter传播了一条假新闻：联邦调查局(FBI)捂住了源自安东尼·韦纳(Anthony Weiner)的电脑，会“让希拉里及其团队坐一辈子牢”的证据。

Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has falsely claimed that hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants are successfully crossing the border annually.

被特朗普提名为司法部长的阿拉巴马州共和党参议员杰夫·塞申斯(Jeff Sessions)错误地宣称，每年有数十万非法移民成功越过边境。

Then there was the announcement by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones that Trump had called to thank himand his radio and internet audience for their support in the campaign.

接着，阴谋论者阿里·琼斯(Alex Jones)宣布，特朗普已经给他打过电话，感谢他以及他的电台和网络广播节目听众在其竞选过程中提供的支持。

Add to that the fact that Trump was the most prominent promoter of the false notion that President Barack Obama wasn’t born here, and didn’t hesitate to repeat the outrageous suggestion that the father of Sen. Ted Cruz was linked to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

此外还有一个事实，特朗普本人是贝拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)总统并非出生于美国这一错误观点的最高级别推手，他还毫不犹豫地援引过参议员特德·克鲁兹(Ted Cruz)的父亲与约翰·F·肯尼迪(John F. Kennedy)总统遇刺案有牵连的过分说法。

Then consider what it may look like when Trump pursues policies regarding Muslim immigrants and undocumented immigrants.

再想想看，当特朗普推行关于穆斯林移民和非法移民的政策时，事情会变成什么样子。

It’s not so outlandish to envision Trump’s attempts to sell his plans getting a lift from the likes of Jones or a fake site out of Macedonia — perhaps claiming that Democrats are working with ISIS to use undocumented immigrants to poison local water supplies or some such.

有些设想不会太离谱：特朗普有可能在竭力推销自己的计划时，得到琼斯之流或者马其顿的一个冒牌网站的帮助——没准儿会宣称民主党正跟伊斯兰国(ISIS)合作，利用非法移民去做给当地水源下毒之类的事情。

That’s why people who care about the truth — citizens, journalists and, let’s hope, social media giants like Facebook, too — will have to come up with a solution to this informational nihilism, fast.

因此，在意事实的人们——公民、记者，希望还有Facebook这样的社交媒体巨擘——将不得不迅速找出应对这种信息虚无主义的办法。

It’s easier said than done. The combination of attacks seeking to delegitimize serious news organizations and a drop in overall trust in the news media has made many people wary of legitimate fact-checking. And, as my colleague John Herrman noted last weekend, politicized voices can easily drown honest journalism all too easily on social media.

说起来容易做起来难。由于严肃新闻机构遭到了旨在令其丧失权威性的种种攻击，再加上世人对媒体的总体信任度有所下降，许多人都对正当的事实核查充满警惕。此外，正如我的同事约翰·赫尔曼(John Herrman)上周所指出的，在社交媒体上，政治化的声音可以轻而易举地淹没真实的新闻。

There is growing talk of an ambitious journalistic collaboration to beat back the tide. Industry thinkers and leaders are coming together online to brainstorm solutions, as Jeff Jarvis, the City University of New York journalism professor, and Eli Pariser, the Upworthy co-founder, have done. (Check them out online.) And I’d say it’s high time that television news — with its still-huge audiences — gets into the act with more than just token gestures at fact-checking.

目前，关于进行雄心勃勃的新闻合作，以便击退这股潮流的讨论日益增多。行业内的思想家和领袖们正在网上集结，群策群力地谋划解决之道，纽约市立大学(City University of New York )新闻学教授杰夫·贾维斯(Jeff Jarvis)和Upworthy网站联合创始人埃利·帕里泽(Eli Pariser)便是如此。(请在网上关注他们。)而我要说，仍然有着庞大受众的电视新闻是时候真正加入进来，而不只是在事实核查方面象征性地做做样子了。

But this much seems clear: The moment calls for some sort of hyperfactual counterinsurgency that treats every false meme as a baby Hitler to be killed in its crib with irrefutable facts.

但有一点很清楚：此刻需要进行某种超现实的以暴制暴，要把每一个虚假米姆当成婴儿时期的希特勒来对待，以无可辩驳的事实将其扼杀在摇篮中。

So hey, Zuck, let’s roll.

因此：嗨，扎克，让我们一起行动起来吧。