社交媒體的政治力量 當假新聞影響選舉
HONG KONG — Facebook rumors force a well-known politician to publish proof of his heritage. Fake images show a prominent female leader in a hangman’s noose. A politician’s aide decries violent crime with a Facebook photo of a girl’s corpse — an image that turns out to come from another country.
香港——Facebook上的傳言迫使一位著名政治人物公開了證明自己身份的證據。在多張僞造的圖片中，一位頗有名望的女性領導人被劊子手套上了絞索。一位政界人物的助手利用Facebook上的一張照片——一個女孩的遺體——譴責暴力犯罪，但事後證明，原來這張照片來自其他國家。
Another day on social media for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump? Think again.
這又是貝拉克•奧巴馬、希拉里•克林頓(Hillary Clinton)和唐納德•J•特朗普(Donald J. Trump)在社交網絡上的遭遇？不見得。
Those incidents took place in Indonesia and the Philippines, where social media’s outsize place in politics is widely acknowledged, even as that role is coming under sharper criticism in the United States.
這些事情發生在印度尼西亞和菲律賓。這兩個國家的社交媒體在政治中的巨大作用得到了廣泛的認可，儘管在美國，這種作用正在遭受更嚴厲的指責。
Well before last week’s American election threw Facebook’s status as a digital-era news source into the spotlight, leaders, advocacy groups and minorities worldwide have contended with an onslaught of online misinformation and abuse that have had real-world political repercussions. And for years, the social network did little to clamp down on the false news.
上週的美國大選將Facebook作爲數字時代消息來源的地位推到了聚光燈下。早在那之前，世界範圍內的領導人、倡導團體和少數族裔羣體就一直面臨大量虛假網絡信息和辱罵，它們對真實世界造成了不良政治影響。多年來，社交網絡基本上沒有抑制虛假信息的舉措。
Now Facebook, Google and others have begun to take steps to curb the trend, but some outside the United States say the move is too late.
現在，Facebook、谷歌(Google)其他一些社交媒體已經開始採取措施，意在遏制這一趨勢，但美國以外的一些人表示爲時已晚。
“They should have done this way earlier,” said Richard Heydarian, a political analyst in the Philippines, one of Facebook’s fastest-growing markets. “We already saw the warning signs of this years ago.”
“它們早該這麼做了，”菲律賓政治分析人士理查德•海達裏安(Richard Heydarian)說。菲律賓是Facebook增長最快的市場之一。“多年前我們就已經看到令人警惕的跡象。”
On Thursday, President Obama, speaking in Berlin and standing alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel, criticized Facebook and other social media for disseminating fake news. He became so impassioned that at one point he lost track of the question he was answering.
週四，奧巴馬總統在德國總理安格拉•默克爾(Angela Merkel)的陪同下在柏林發表講話時，指責Facebook和其他社交媒體傳播假新聞。他情緒激動，以至一度偏離了正在回答的問題。
“If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won’t know what to protect,” Mr. Obama said.
“如果所有東西看上去都一樣，不加區分，那我們就無法知道該保護什麼，”奧巴馬說。
The impact of Facebook and other social media platforms on international elections is difficult to quantify. But Facebook’s global reach — roughly a quarter of the world’s population now has an account — is difficult to deny, political experts and academics say.
Facebook和其他社交媒體平臺對國際選舉的影響是很難估量的。但政治專家和學者表示，Facebook的全球影響力——現在全球大約四分之一的人擁有Facebook賬號——難以否認。
Some governments are pushing back, sometimes with undemocratic consequences. Ms. Merkel has said she is considering plans to force social networks to make public how they rank news online. Some African countries have banned the use of Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter before elections. Indonesia’s government has closed sites that it says promote fake news, though experts say some portals were also targeted for political reasons.
一些政府正在進行反擊，有時會造成不民主的後果。默克爾表示正在考慮強迫社交網絡公開網絡新聞排名方式。一些非洲國家禁止在選舉前使用Facebook、WhatsApp和Twitter。印尼政府關閉了多個網站，稱它們傳播假新聞，但專家稱一些門戶網站也是因爲政治原因而成爲目標的。
Facebook said on Thursday that the social network was a place for people to stay informed and that what people saw in their news feed was overwhelmingly authentic. The Silicon Valley company previously denied that it failed to deal with misinformation and said it continues to monitor the social network so that it meets existing standards.
Facebook週四表示，該社交網絡是人們獲取信息的地方，並稱人們在自己的新聞推送中看到的內容絕大部分都是真實的。之前，這家位於硅谷的公司否認自己對虛假信息不作爲。該公司表示會繼續監控該社交網絡，以符合現有標準。
“I think the idea that fake news on Facebook, which is a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way — I think is a pretty crazy idea,” Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, told a tech conference days after the American presidential election. “Voters make decisions based on their lived experience.”
“我覺得，認爲Facebook上的假新聞以某種方式影響了選舉是非常瘋狂的想法，那些內容的數量非常小，”美國大選結束幾天後，該公司首席執行官馬克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)在一次科技會議上說。“選民會根據生活中的經驗作出決定。”
Facebook’s power is often stronger overseas than it is in the United States. In many developing countries with populations new to both democracy and social media, experts said, fake stories can be more widely believed. And in some of these countries, Facebook even offers free smartphone data connections to basic public online services, some news sites and Facebook itself — but limits access to broader sources that could help debunk fake news.
Facebook在國外的影響力通常比在美國更大。專家說，在許多發展中國家，民主和社交媒體對民衆來說是新鮮事物，假新聞會更加普遍地被信以爲真。在其中一些國家，Facebook甚至免費提供將智能手機數據與基本的公共在線服務機構、部分新聞網站和Facebook自己連接起來的服務，但限制用戶接觸更廣泛的消息來源。後者可能有助於揭穿假新聞。
One such place is the Philippines, where a spokesman for its populist president, Rodrigo Duterte, shared on Facebook an image of a corpse of a young girl believed to have been raped and killed by a drug dealer. Fact checkers later revealed that the photo had come from Brazil. Despite the debunking, proponents of Mr. Duterte’s bloody crackdown on reported drug dealers and addicts still cite the image in his defense, according to political analysts.
菲律賓便是這樣一個地方。該國的民粹主義總統羅德里戈•杜特地(Rodrigo Duterte)的發言人在Faebook上分享了一張照片，上面是一名年輕女孩的遺體，據信是被一名毒販姦殺的。調查人員後來透露，其實這張照片來自巴西。據政治分人士介紹，儘管真相被揭穿，但支持杜特地血腥鎮壓被舉報毒販和癮君子的人，依然用這張照片爲他辯護。
Tens of thousands of Philippine Facebook users also recently shared a story claiming that NASA had voted Mr. Duterte “the best president in the solar system.” While many commenters on the Facebook post took it as a joke, some appeared to take it seriously. And an image of Leila de Lima, a local lawmaker and a critic of Mr. Duterte, depicted her facing a hangman’s noose.
最近，菲律賓數萬名Facebook用戶還分享了一則聲稱美國航空航天局(NASA)評選杜特地爲“太陽系最傑出的總統”的新聞。儘管在Facebook上的這篇帖子下面留言的很多人都把它當做笑話，但一些人似乎當真了。此外，在一張圖片中，菲律賓議員、對杜特地持批評意見的萊拉•德利馬(Leila de Lima)被人套上了絞索。
“Facebook hasn’t led to empowerment of the average citizen, but empowerment of professional propagandists, fringe elements and conspiracy theorists,” said Mr. Heydarian, the Philippines political analyst. “Voices that were lurking in the shadows are now at the center of the public discourse.”
“Facebook並未帶來普通公民的賦權，倒是助長了職業政治宣傳、邊緣分子和陰謀論者的力量，”菲律賓政治分析人士海達裏安說。“過去潛伏在陰影中的聲音，現在成了公共話語的中心。”
In Indonesia, where Facebook is so popular that some people confuse it with the broader internet, the service has considerable sway.
Facebook在印尼極受歡迎，以至於一些人把它等同爲整個互聯網。在那裏，Facebook擁有相當大的影響力。
When Joko Widodo, Indonesia’s president, was running for office in 2014, he was accused through social media of being a Chinese Christian and a communist — severe criticism in the deeply Islamic country. The Indonesian politician released his marriage certificate to prove he wasn’t Chinese and made a pilgrimage to Mecca just before voting.
在2014年競選時，印尼總統佐科•威多多(Joko Widodo)在社交媒體上被指是一名華裔基督徒和共產主義者。在一個伊斯蘭教深入人心的國家，這是頗爲嚴厲的抨擊。爲了證明自己不是華裔，這位印尼政治人物公開了自己的結婚證書，還在大選前夕前往麥加朝聖。
“The fake news had a very big impact in our campaign,” said Tubagus Ramadhan, who helped Mr. Widodo run his social media campaign during the election.
“假新聞對我們的競選影響非常大，”在選舉期間幫助威多多管理社交媒體活動的圖巴古斯•拉馬丹(Tubagus Ramadhan)說。
Even in long-established democracies like Germany, Spain and Italy, false news reports and hate speech on social media have whipped up grass-roots populist movements, which have often targeted the recent influx of Middle Eastern refugees, to garner wider electoral support.
即便是在德國、西班牙和意大利等歷史悠久的民主國家，社交媒體上的虛假新聞報道和仇恨言論也在煽動草根階層的民粹主義運動。它們常將目標對準最近大量涌入的中東難民，以在選舉中獲得更廣泛的支持。
Now, many European politicians are questioning what role social media has had in deciding what voters can and cannot see. They also have forced social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google to sign up for voluntary — so far — standards to police hate speech online.
現在，很多歐洲政治人物質疑，社交媒體在決定選民能看到和看不到的內容上扮演着什麼角色。他們還迫使Facebook、Twitter和谷歌等社交網絡簽名支持監控網絡仇恨言論的標準。相關標準目前屬於自願性質。
In Germany, Ms. Merkel’s push to require American social network companies to publish how they rank news is intended to give voters greater control over what they read online.
在德國，默克爾試圖要求美國社交網絡公司公佈新聞排名方式，以求讓選民對自己在網上看到的內容有更大的控制權。
“Algorithms must be more transparent,” Ms. Merkel has said, “so that interested citizens are also aware of what actually happens with their own media behavior and that of others.”
“算法必須更加透明，”默克爾說。“這樣相關的公民也會對自己和其他人的媒介行爲有更清楚的意識。”
