中東和非洲板塊
Facebook and autocrats
Facebook和專制統治者
With friends like these
和這樣的朋友在一起
The social-media giant has been bending to the will of Arab despots
社交媒體巨頭Facebook屈從于阿拉伯專制統治者的意愿
For Sariya Al-bitar, an architect in Syria’s war-torn city of Idlib, the message was devastating. “Your account has been permanently disabled for not following our Facebook Community Standards,” read the note from the social-media giant. “Unfortunately, we won’t be able to reactivate it for any reason.” Fourteen years of family photos, reminiscences and his diary of Syria’s civil war—along with his list of 30,000 followers—were erased. Mr Bitar had tried to be careful. He had not called dead rebels shahids (martyrs) or posted gore. He suspects Facebook silenced him for commemorating a Syrian football star who, after months of protesting, picked up arms and was killed by the regime of Basharal-Assad.
薩里塔·阿爾·比塔爾是一名建筑師,生活在敘利亞的一個飽受戰亂蹂躪的城市伊德利卜市，對于他來說，這則消息駭人聽聞。“您的賬戶因不遵循我們的Facebook社群標準而被永久禁用，”這家社交媒體巨頭在留言中寫道。“不幸的是，我們無法以任何理由重新激活它。”14年以來的家庭相片、回憶和他關于敘利亞內戰的日記，連同他3萬名追隨者的名單都被抹去了。比塔爾試圖小心點。他沒有稱呼叛軍為殉道者（烈士），也沒有發布殘暴詞匯。他懷疑Facebook禁用自己的賬戶的原因是自己紀念了一位敘利亞足球明星，這位足球明星在抗議數月后拿起了武器，被巴沙爾·阿薩德政權殺害。
In a region ruled by despots, Facebook claims to give “free expression maximum possible range”. That has won it a vast following. The platform has more users in the Gulf states than anywhere else in the world, relative to the population. It is the main source of news for many Arabs. Some even credit it for the Arab spring protests of 2011. But since going public in 2012, Facebook has grown more mindful of the authoritarians who provide it with access, say critics, and less hospitable to activists. In recent months it has culled hundreds of users from Tunisia to Iran and deleted hundreds of thousands of posts. “Many people feel that Facebook is no longer a platform they can use to hold the powerful to account,” says Marwa Fatafta of Access Now, a pressure group. Add to that Facebook’s challenges in America, where it has lost a slew of advertisers over its failure to police hateful content.
在一個由專制統治者統治的地區，Facebook聲稱會給予“自由表達的最大可能范圍”。這為它贏得了大量的追隨者。與人口相比，這個平臺在海灣國家擁有的用戶比世界上任何地方都多。它是許多阿拉伯人的主要新聞來源。一些人甚至把它歸功于2011年的阿拉伯之春抗議活動。但批評人士說，自2012年上市以來，Facebook越來越關注那些為其提供訪問權限的威權主義者，而對積極分子們的熱情也越來越低。近幾個月來，從突尼斯到伊朗，它已經剔除了數百名用戶，并刪除了數十萬條帖子。“很多人覺得，Facebook不再是一個他們可以用來讓權貴們承擔責任的平臺，”壓力集團AccessNow的Marwa Fatafta表示。再加上Facebook在美國面臨的挑戰，它在美國失去了一大批廣告商，原因是它未能監管惡劣內容。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
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