在云听证会现场你会看到两名律师和一只“猫”，实际上这只可爱的猫咪是一位名叫罗德·庞顿的律师，但庞顿律师不知道怎么关掉猫咪滤镜，只能叹气说：“我不是猫咪，我是律师。” 云听证会上可不止带来了奇闻轶事,体现了政府的透明度，也引发了人们的担忧：这样随便散播别人的“灰暗时刻”是否侵犯了隐私？
One of the many unforeseen consequences of COVID-19 is that many courts are now holding their hearings over Zoom. These hearings are all recorded and often streamed in public, creating a new engine for internet virality whenever something funny or unexpected happens. It has become such a common event, there's a new subreddit dedicated to Zoom Court, which now has over 12,000 subscribers.
新冠疫情带来的不可预见的后果之一就是法院的许多听证会都需要借助Zoom平台完成，这些听证会现场都会被录制下来并且会上传到公众平台。每当听证会现场发生有趣的亦或是出乎意料的事情时，都会掀起舆论热浪。目前已经有一个专门账号用于云听证会，其订阅者已超1.2万人。
Zoom会议趣事
——
美国一女士在社交平台分享一趣事，她的老板在开视频会议时不小心打开了滤镜，将自己变成了一颗土豆。因为不知道怎么关闭滤镜，整场会议中，都被困在土豆里…
云听证会成为真正的“真人秀”？
The ZoomCourt subreddit features many moments that have viral potential similar to the cat filter lawyer because they are funny, shocking, or evoking schadenfreude. In one video, the judge asks if one of the people on the call actually wants to be known by their Zoom screen name, "h0e'N-g0." In another trial about a suspended driver's license, the defendant Zooms into court from the driver's seat of his car.
ZoomCourt账号上记录了许多和猫咪滤镜相似的案例，它们或有趣，或震撼，或能够引起群嘲。在一个听证会视频中，法官询问其中的一个人是否要以他的网名"h0e'N-g0"称呼他。在另外的一个关于驾照被吊销的案件中，被告是坐在他的车里参加的听证会。
"I think the reason people are tuning in is because of how transparent and real everything is," One poster, who goes by the username Playoffasprilla said. "It's the greatest reality show that was never really meant to be a reality show."
一位网名为Playoffasprilla的用户认为，人们喜欢观看听证会是因为一切都是透明和真实的，这是一场前所未有的真正的“真人秀”。
The impact that this newfound internet popularity has had on court proceedings is "profound, and in some cases troubling."
法官Middleton认为，这个新发现的网络热点对于庭审来说是“意义深远的，但在某些情况下来说是麻烦的”。
聚光灯下的公众隐私如何保障？
People's privacy
in the spotlight
But while Zoom court videos may be a boon for governmental transparency (and for anyone who wants to see someone say that they are not a cat), some have concerns about the privacy of the people in them.
尽管zoom的法庭录像是提高政府的透明度的一个福音（对于任何想要看法官究竟“是人是猫”的吃瓜群众亦然），但有些人仍担心其中的个人隐私问题。
According to Alex Howard, director at government transparency organization Digital Democracy, these videos are helpful because the simple act of documenting something and making that documentation public is transparency. But it's also placing private citizens in a spotlight they might not want shined on them.
据调查政府透明度组织“Digital Democracy（数据民主）”的经理Alex Howard说，这些录像助益颇多。因为将过程记录下来并将其公开这一简单举措正体现了政府透明度。但同时，这也将民众个人置于聚光灯下，这或许有违本意。
A well-informed population is the one that self-governs best.
Public records belong to the public, but the stewards and the guardians of the records also have to protect the public that is contained within them.
“有识之士最适自治”，Howard说，“公共记录属于公众，但管理人员也要替公众保护好其中的隐私。”
Another of Howard's concerns is that many of these videos are hosted on YouTube, a private corporation that isn't intended to be a resource for government transparency, but instead a company that makes money off of selling ads against the videos users upload. It places these videos into an ecosystem that's based on virality and popularity, often without much of a thought to the people featured in the videos themselves.
Howard还有另一个担忧：这些庭审视频大多发布于YouTube，而YouTube是一个私人企业，它并不是展现政府透明度的资源平台，而是通过对用户上传的视频插入广告营销来赚钱。它将这些视频投放到一个大环境中，进行病毒式和热点式传播，往往并未考虑视频中的人物本身。
People's worst day, shouldn't be monetized for a global audience's benefit. The platforms [that the videos are hosted on], I think, need to be thinking really carefully about how they treat this kind of content and, dare I say it, be responsible and transparent about any harms that come to people whose worst day in court gets blown up.
“人们最糟糕的那一天，不应该用来迎合全球观众口味并成为借机套现的工具”， Howard说，“视频发布平台应该仔细思考他们应该如何对待这些内容，而且，说句不中听的，如果听证会的公开对当事人带来任何伤害，平台应该为此负责。”
While many of the videos on the subreddit are harmless, some, like this video of a judge disparaging a black man who was shot at by the police, are illuminating, showing how the system can treat Black people more harshly. For every cat filter video there are many more that show the reality of court—it's not a place anyone ends up in for a good, happy reason.
尽管账户上的许多视频都是无伤大雅的，但某些视频（例如法官贬低被警察射杀的黑人的视频）却引人深思，显示了黑人遭到的严厉的对待。庭审中像猫咪滤镜这样的情况可能会给观众带来片刻的欢乐，但还有很多没有被关注到的视频才真正反映了法庭的现实——来此寻求正义的人们必然遇到了生活中的灰暗时刻，这并不是一个可以嘻嘻哈哈的场合。
公开=公正+透明？
McCormack said that around five months ago, the state of Michigan put together a task force in order to plan the best practices for using Zoom for court, and for hosting video on private platforms like YouTube. While it's too early to know what that task force will recommend, the question of how to balance the transparency of the internet with its potentiality to harm private citizens is one all states will have to grapple with.
密歇根最高法院法官McCormack说道，大约五个月前，密歇根州组建了一个工作组，来规划如何最大程度上发挥Zoom云庭审以及YouTube这样的视频平台的优势。虽然现在还无法得知工作组将会给出怎样的建议，但是，如何平衡网络透明度和对公民隐私的潜在威胁，是所有州都必须要应对的一个问题。
Cases involving children, like custody disputes, also serve as a potential vector for a violation of privacy.
McCormack指出，涉及儿童的案件，例如监护权纠纷，也可能为潜在的隐私侵犯的发酵提供机会。
Historically, trials and even executions have been used as a form of entertainment for the public.
Howard说，公众将审讯甚至处决视为一种娱乐方式，历史上早已有之。
音乐剧—《芝加哥》
——
音乐剧《芝加哥》正是基于这一现象创作而成。剧中，两名女舞者犯罪入狱，却在律师帮助下，不仅逃脱了死刑，还成为了时代红人，看客将罪犯当作明星追捧，将司法公正、案件真相抛掷脑后。
现实案例—辛普森案
——
1995年备受关注的辛普森案，美国橄榄球巨星辛普森被指控杀害了他的前妻和好友，以犯罪题材节目闻名的视频网站Court TV播出了对此案件为期134天的全部审讯过程。
The issue of whether these Zoom court hearings should be hosted publicly isn't all that different from similar debates in the 90s, when courts started to broadcast hearings on television.
Howard认为，Zoom庭审是否应当向公众开放这一问题，与90年代法院开始在电视上播放听证会的争论没什么不同。
For Zoom court video fans, these issues aren't invisible. Playoffasprilla said that it would be prudent for courts to make better use of Zoom's features to protect the privacy of individuals.
Zoom庭审视频的爱好者们也意识到了这一问题，网民Playoffasprilla认为，法庭应该谨慎行事，利用好Zoom的特点来保护当事人的隐私。
"I also think comment sections should be removed during live videos," they said. "They are distracting and do more harm than good."
同时，他们表示，庭审直播应该关闭评论区，因为那些留言很容易让人分心，弊大于利。
For what it's worth, in a recent video from Judge Middleton, at the end, he addresses the YouTube chat. To put it mildly, the chat for Judge Middleton's videos are lively.
值得一提的是，在最近上传的视频的最后，Middleton法官还是发表了一番针对YouTube聊天区的讲话，他的这番话，说得好听点是“一石激起千层浪”。
We've started to be a popular spot for people to watch court proceedings. That's all good, we're transparent and we allow people to watch everything. But we've developed a community in chat that posts things that are grossly inappropriate. I'm going to turn it off. You're free to watch all you want, but I'm going to turn off the live chat.
“我们的人气越来越高，成为了人们观看庭审进程的绝佳渠道。这挺好的，我们的庭审能够做到高透明度，无论什么大家都可以自由观看。但同时，我们发现在聊天区，有部分群体喜欢上传一些非常不适宜的内容。” Middleton法官如是说道，“你们仍然可以自由观看你们感兴趣的内容，但是我已下定决心关闭聊天区。”
THE END
编译| 王兆隆 刘予萌 常君怡 李艳阳
排版| 刘予萌
