評論
打印
Leaders
領導者
Do social media threaten democracy?
社會媒體危害民主？
Facebook, Google and Twitter were supposed to improve politics. Something has gone very wrong.
臉書、谷歌和推特曾被認為會改善政治。有些事是大錯特錯了。
IN 1962 a British political scientist, Bernard Crick, published “In Defence of Politics”.
1962年，英國政治學家伯納德·克里克出版了《政治之辯護》一書。
He argued that the art of political horse-trading, far from being shabby, lets people of different beliefs live together in a peaceful, thriving society.
他指出，政治上的討價還價非但不齷齪卑鄙，反而是讓不同信念的人共同生活在一個和平繁榮的社會中。
In a liberal democracy, nobody gets exactly what he wants, but everyone broadly has the freedom to lead the life he chooses.
在自由民主制度下，沒有人能夠想要什么就得到什么，但是，人人都廣泛地擁有過自己選擇的生活的自由。
However, without decent information, civility and conciliation, societies resolve their differences by resorting to coercion.
然而，沒有了正經嚴肅的信息，沒有了謙恭與和解，社會解決分歧靠的是訴諸于高壓脅迫。
How Crick would have been dismayed by the falsehood and partisanship on display in this week's Senate committee hearings in Washington.
克里克該為本周在華盛頓參議院聽證會上展示的虛假和黨派偏見感到多么傷心啊。
Not long ago social media held out the promise of a more enlightened politics, as accurate information and effortless communication helped good people drive out corruption, bigotry and lies.
不久前，隨著精準的信息和毫不費力的交流幫助好人挖出了腐敗、趕走了偏執，擊敗了謊言，社會媒體展示了一個更加開明的政治的前景。
Yet Facebook acknowledged that before and after last year's American election, between January 2015 and August this year, 146m users may have seen Russian misinformation on its platform.
然而，臉書也已承認，在去年美國大選前后，即2015年1月到今年8月期間，1.46億用戶可能在其平臺上看到了俄羅斯的不實信息。
Google's YouTube admitted to 1,108 Russian-linked videos and Twitter to 36,746 accounts.
谷歌的YouTube和推特也分別承認了1108個和36746個賬戶與俄羅斯有關的視頻和賬戶。
Far from bringing enlightenment, social media have been spreading poison.
非但沒有帶來教化啟迪，社會媒體反而一直在傳播毒藥。
Russia's trouble-making is only the start.
俄羅斯的撥弄是非僅僅是開始。
From South Africa to Spain, politics is getting uglier.
從南非到西班牙，政治正在變得越來越丑陋。
Part of the reason is that, by spreading untruth and outrage, corroding voters' judgment and aggravating partisanship, social media erode the conditions for the horse-trading that Crick thought fosters liberty.
部分原因在于，借著傳播不實之事和無名之火，借著擾亂選民的判斷和加劇黨派分歧，社會媒體侵蝕的是克里克認為是養育自由的討價還價的土壤。
