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Saudis Deploy a Swarm of Online Trolls to Stifle Critics like Khashoggi
沙特部署網絡水軍，專門扼殺哈蘇吉等批判人士
By Katie Benner, Mark Mazzetti, Ben Hubbard and Mike Isaac
文/卡蒂·本納，馬克·馬澤蒂，本·哈巴德，邁克·艾薩克
Each morning, Jamal Khashoggi would check his phone to discover what fresh hell had been unleashed while he was sleeping.
每天早上，賈馬爾·哈蘇吉都會打開手機看看他睡覺期間網上又發了哪些新的鬼話。
He would see the work of an army of Twitter trolls, ordered to attack him and other influential Saudis who had criticized the kingdom’s leaders.
他會看到一大群推特水軍的言論，他們都是受命到網上攻擊他還有其他頗具影響力又批判過該王國各位領導人的沙特人的。
He sometimes took the attacks personally, so friends made a point of calling frequently to check on his mental state.
有時，哈蘇吉也會將這些攻擊當真，所以朋友們都特別注意經常給他打電話，確保他的精神還正常。
"The mornings were the worst for him because he would wake up to the equivalent of sustained gunfire online,"
“早上對他來說是最糟糕的，因為他一醒來就要面對一場持續的網絡槍戰，
said Maggie Mitchell Salem, a friend of Mr. Khashoggi’s for more than 15 years.
與哈蘇吉有著15多年交情的麥琪·米歇爾·賽倫說到。
Mr. Khashoggi’s online attackers were part of a broad effort dictated by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his close advisers to silence critics both inside Saudi Arabia and abroad.
為了讓沙特內外的批判者們噤聲，王儲穆罕默德·本·薩勒曼及其關系親密的顧問做出了廣泛指示，那些攻擊哈蘇吉的網絡噴子就在其中。
Hundreds of people work at a so-called troll farm in Riyadh to smother the voices of dissidents like Mr. Khashoggi.
利雅得一個所謂的“巨魔農場”上養著數百名水軍，專門扼殺哈蘇吉之類持不同政見者的聲音。
The vigorous push also appears to include the grooming — not previously reported — of a Saudi employee at Twitter
沙特王儲的這一強勢舉措似乎還包括給推特的一名沙特員工洗腦，此事在此之前并未見報，
whom Western intelligence officials suspected of spying on user accounts to help the Saudi leadership.
據西方情報官員懷疑，該員工有監視用戶賬戶以幫助沙特領導人的嫌疑。
The killing by Saudi agents of Mr. Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post,
沙特特工殺害《華盛頓郵報》專欄作家哈蘇吉一事，
has focused the world’s attention on the kingdom’s intimidation campaign against influential voices,
將全世界的注意力都吸引到了沙特王國為鎮壓有影響力的人士采取的恐嚇活動上，
raising questions about the darker side of the crown prince.
進而引起了人們對這位王儲陰暗面的質疑。
The young royal has tightened his grip on the kingdom while presenting himself in Western capitals as the man to reform the hidebound Saudi state.
這位年輕的王室成員一邊加強自己對王室的控制，一邊以改革守舊的沙特王國的改革者的形象出現在西方各國的首都。
This portrait of the kingdom’s image management crusade is based on interviews with seven people involved in those efforts or briefed on them;
這一王國形象管理改革運動的描述是本刊采訪了七位知情人士，這些人要么是那些活動的參與者，要么收到過相關匯報；
activists and experts who have studied them; and American and Saudi officials, along with messages seen by The New York Times that described the inner workings of the troll farm.
要么是研究過這些活動的活動家和專家；要么是美國和沙特的官員，加上本刊看到的描述“巨魔農場”內部運作的信息得出來的。
Saudi operatives have mobilized to harass critics on Twitter, a wildly popular platform for news in the kingdom since the Arab Spring uprisings began in 2010.
沙特特工已經動員起來在推特上騷擾沙特的批判者，因為，從2010年“阿拉伯之春”起義以來，推特在該國一直是一家廣受歡迎的新聞平臺。
Saud al-Qahtani, a top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed who was fired on Saturday in the fallout from Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, was the strategist behind the operation, according to United States and Saudi officials, as well as activist organizations.
根據美國和沙特官員及維權組織的說法，沙特·阿爾-卡塔尼，受哈蘇吉之死影響于周六被解雇的穆罕默德王儲的高級顧問，就是此次行動背后的策劃。
Many Saudis had hoped that Twitter would democratize discourse by giving everyday citizens a voice,
許多沙特人都指望著推特能夠通過賦予普通公民發言權來使沙特的話語更加民主，
but Saudi Arabia has instead become an illustration of how authoritarian governments can manipulate social media to silence or drown out critical voices while spreading their own version of reality.
然而，沙特反而成了一個專治政府操控社交媒體禁言、淹沒批判的聲音，同時散布他們所謂的現實的例子。
“In the Gulf, the stakes are so high for those who engage in dissent that the benefits of using social media are outweighed by the negatives, and in Saudi Arabia in particular,”
“在海灣地區，尤其是在沙特，存有異議的人往往都冒著巨大的風險，以致于對他們而言，使用社交媒體的好處遠不及使用它的壞處大，”
said Marc Owen Jones, a lecturer in the history of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula at Exeter University in Britain.
英國埃克塞特大學波斯灣和阿拉伯半島歷史方向的講師馬克·歐文·瓊斯說到。
Neither Saudi officials nor Mr. Qahtani responded to requests for comment about the kingdom’s efforts to control online conversations.
媒體請求沙特官員和卡塔尼對沙特王國努力控制網絡言論一事發表看法，雙方均未做出回應。
Before his death, Mr. Khashoggi was launching projects to combat online abuse and to try to reveal that Crown Prince Mohammed was mismanaging the country.
去世前，哈蘇吉先生正在著手啟動打擊網絡霸凌的項目，揭露穆罕默德王儲對該國管理不善的事實。
In September, Mr. Khashoggi wired $5,000 to Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi dissident living in Canada, who was creating a volunteer army to combat the government trolls on Twitter.
九月，哈蘇吉給居住在加拿大對沙特持不同政見者的奧馬爾·阿卜杜勒阿齊茲匯去了5000美元的資金，當時后者正在推特上組織一支反抗沙特政府的水軍的志愿軍。
The volunteers called themselves the “Electronic Bees.”
那些志愿者們自稱“電子蜂。”
Eleven days before Mr. Khashoggi died in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, he wrote on Twitter that the Bees were coming.
哈蘇吉在伊斯坦布爾的沙特使館出事的11天前，他曾在推特上發文，稱電子蜂就要出巢了。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
