在
这个社交媒体被滥用的时代，我们有时候也难以控制自己的想法，甚至有一天可能被社交媒体左右。究竟发生了什么让本该拓宽人们眼界的社交媒体成为了威胁民主的存在？请关注本期Quriosity。
In 1962 a British political scientist, Bernard Crick, published “In Defence of Politics”. 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. In a liberal democracy, nobody gets exactly what he wants, but everyone broadly has the freedom to lead the life he chooses. However, without decent information, civility and conciliation, societies resolve their differences by resorting to coercion.
在1962年，一位名叫Bernard Crick的英国政治科学家发表了“捍卫政治”一文。他认为拥有不同信仰的人们之所以能一起生活在和平繁荣的社会中，依靠的是政治交易的艺术而不是低劣下流的手段。在一个自由的民主政治中，没人能完全得到他想要的，但大体上每个人都能自由地选择他们想要的生活。然而，如果没有合宜的信息，文明礼仪和妥协和解，不同党派将通过诉诸强权政治的方式解决其差异。
Social media make their money by putting photos, personal posts, news stories and ads in front of you. Because they can measure how you react, they know just how to get under your skin.
社交媒体通过为你提供照片、帖子、新闻和广告来赚钱。他们可以监测你对不同内容的反应来知晓你最关心的东西，因此对你的喜好尽在掌握。
Everyone who has scrolled through Facebook knows how, instead of imparting wisdom, the system dishes out compulsive stuff that tends to reinforce people’s biases.
浏览过Facebook的人都知道，系统会呈现让你看得停不下来的内容。而这些内容往往会加深人们的偏见，而不是传播知识增长智慧。
It is reported that Facebook acknowledged that before and after last year’s American election, between January2015 and August this year, 146m users may have seen Russian misinformation on its platform. Google’s YouTube admitted to 1,108 Russian-linked videos and Twitter to 36,746 accounts. Russia tried to influence the us election by these channels.
Facebook承认了在去年美国大选前后，也就是2015年1月至2017年8月之间，约1.46亿的用户在平台上看过俄罗斯发布的误导性信息。Google旗下的YouTube上有1108个与俄方相关的视频，而Twitter上有36746个相关账号。俄罗斯试图通过这些渠道来影响美国大选。
Russia’s trouble-making is only the start. From South Africa to Spain, politics is getting uglier. 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.
俄罗斯给美国大选添乱仅仅是个开端。从南非到西班牙，政治越来越混乱不堪。原因之一就是社交媒体传播不实信息、触发民怨，影响选民的判断、激化党派关系，从而腐蚀了政治交易的条件。而Bernard Crick认为，政党之间的协商交易有助于促进自由。
Because different sides see different facts, they share no empirical basis for reaching a compromise. Because each side hears time and again that the other lot are good for nothing but lying, bad faith and slander. Because people are sucked into a maelstrom of pettiness, scandal and outrage, they lose sight of what matters for the society they share.
不同的党派无法达成一致，因为他们看到的事实不同，没有共同的经验基础。每个党派一再被灌输的看法是，其他党派只会说谎，恶意中伤，诽谤他人。人们陷入了卑鄙、丑闻和愤怒的漩涡。看不清对于他们共存其中的社会来说，什么才是真正重要的。
There are other remedies. The social-media companies should adjust their sites to make clearer if a post comes from a friend or a trusted source. They could accompany the sharing of posts with reminders of the harm from misinformation.
可以采取一些补救措施。比如社交媒体公司应该在网站管理方面做出一些调整，明确提示帖子是否来自朋友或可靠的信源。此外，它们也可以在用户转发帖子时提醒误导信息可能带来的危害。
Social media are being abused. But, with a will, society can harness them and revive that early dream of enlightenment. The stakes for liberal democracy could hardly be higher.
今天的社交媒体正在被滥用。但是如果愿意努力，社会仍能好好利用社交媒体，并重燃最初对它抱有的希望——传播真相，开启民智。如今，自由民主面临的风险已经不能再高了。
文章来源：经济学人
图片来源：网络
