有人歡喜有人憂：臉書新功能將讓你洗白過去
社交網絡臉書推出了一項新功能，允許用戶刪除和隱藏自己不想被人看到的帖子，這樣一來消除了很多人的隱憂，但是也有人擔心破壞性言論的證據也因此消失無蹤。
Facebook is to allow users to clean up their profiles by hiding posts and photographs dating from when they were teenagers or at university amid fears it could hinder their future job prospects.
社交網絡臉書將允許用戶清理自己的個人資料，將青少年或大學時期上傳的一些可能會阻礙求職前程的帖子和照片隱藏起來。
The social network said it had added the feature because "we know things change in people’s lives" and that it wished to make it easier for people to "accurately reflect" who they were in the present. It said the public would be able to use the "Manage Activity” tool to search their posts by year or person, and delete or archive those posts in bulk.
臉書表示，增加這一功能是因爲“我們知道人生會發生改變”，希望能有助於人們“準確地反映出”自己現在是個什麼樣的人。臉書稱，公衆可以運用“管理活動”工具，按年份或人物來搜索帖子，批量刪除帖子或將其存檔。
If users archive posts, they will not just be hidden from timelines, as they are with the current “Hide” feature, but from across Facebook as a whole, regardless of where it was posted or who was tagged in it.
如果用戶將帖子存檔，它們不僅會在時間軸中被隱藏（這是現有的“隱藏”功能可以做到的），而且臉書網站上的所有人都看不到，無論帖子發在哪裏或標記了什麼人。
It said: "Whether you’re entering the job market after college or moving on from an old relationship, we know things change in people’s lives, and we want to make it easy for you to curate your presence on Facebook to more accurately reflect who you are today."
臉書稱：“無論你是大學畢業後進入職場，還是從一段舊戀情中走出來，我們知道人的生活會發生改變，我們希望這能有助於人們管理自己在臉書上的資料，使其更準確地反映出你現在的面貌。”
Such tools could prove useful to those looking to clean up their social media presence ahead of job interviews by making it impossible to find old posts of parties, nights out or fancy dress that could show them in a negative light.
這樣的工具對於那些想在求職面試前清理社交媒體痕跡的人來說會很有用，可以讓別人無法找到對自己形象不利的派對、夜生活或奇裝異服的老帖子。
However, the move may cause some concern that Facebook is allowing people to whitewash their history, making it more difficult for people to search through posts for evidence of damaging comments.
然而，臉書允許人們洗白過去的這一舉動可能會引發某些人的擔憂，這樣一來人們就更難以通過搜索帖子找到破壞性言論的證據。
Over the past few years, it has become relatively easy to trawl through old posts, with the company in 2015 introducing a new indexing tool, by which users could search for terms such as “posts about drunk” and bring up lists of someone's historic posts. This has led to revelations over a number of high-profile figures, who have faced criticism over comments they had made on Facebook in the past.
在過去幾年，搜尋舊帖子還是相對容易的，因爲臉書公司在2015年推出了一個新的索引工具，用戶可以用該工具來搜索“關於酗酒的帖子”等關鍵詞，就能查到某人的一堆陳年老帖子。這導致多位知名人物的“黑歷史”被翻出來，他們因爲過去在臉書上發表過的言論而受到批評。
In November, Conservative election candidate Antony Calvert stepped down from campaigning in Wakefield after historic Facebook posts emerged from 2010 and 2011 in which he made racist and sexist remarks. Mr Calvert, who had once referred to the capital as "Londonistan", said the entries were more than 10 years old, were not meant to be taken seriously and did not represent his views.
去年11月份，保守黨候選人安東尼·卡爾弗特因爲2010年到2011年間發的幾條臉書舊帖子被翻出來而退出韋克菲爾德的競選。他在這些舊帖子中曾發表過種族歧視和性別歧視的言論。曾將倫敦稱爲“倫敦斯坦”的卡爾弗特表示這些帖子是十多年前發的，不能當真，也不代表他的觀點。
Naz Shah, meanwhile, was briefly suspended from the Labour Party in 2016 after it emerged she had shared a Facebook post which suggested that Israel’s population should be “transported” out of the Middle East to the US. She later admitted the comments in the post were antisemitic.
與此同時，納茲·莎在被人翻出她曾經分享過一個暗示以色列人口應該從中東“運到”美國的臉書帖子以後，曾在2016年被工黨臨時停職。她後來承認帖子裏的言論是反猶太的。
