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听力文本
JUDY WOODRUFF: It is a deep dive into the inner workings of Facebook. A Wall Street Journal investigation out this week alleges deceit and dangers at the social media giant. Among its conclusions? Facebook's platforms are -- quote -- "riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands." John Yang has more.
JOHN YANG: Judy, the series called "The Facebook Files" is based on The Journal's review of internal company documents. The stories highlight the ways in which Facebook handles or doesn't handle a range of issues across its vast digital empire, from the negative effects of Instagram on young people to misinformation and violent content. Jeff Horwitz is the lead reporter on the series and joins us now. Jeff, thanks for being with us. You have got four installments that have published so far. You have a fifth coming. Is there a common thread or a common takeaway to all these stories that you're finding?
JEFF HORWITZ, The Wall Street Journal: There are probably a couple. One is that Facebook has, in the last few years, come to understand, through significant research, what its effects are on society. And they turn out to be pretty grave in some instances. And it is not all good news they're finding. In fact, a lot of it is very bad. And I think how the company has done that work and responded, or more often than not, not responded to it, is, I think, a very important thing. And then I think there is also an element of this where it's just Facebook appears to have a very hard time managing itself, keeping attention on problems to fix them, and actually sort of adhering to its own rules internally.
JOHN YANG: And a lot of these issues, when they arise and are talked about, the -- Facebook's leaders, Mark Zuckerberg and others, often, to me, seem surprised that this is an issue. But you're finding otherwise.
JEFF HORWITZ: Yes, it is a strange thing, given that the company just sort of doesn't seem to expect the misuse of its platform that people who are misusing its platform should have trained them on by now. So, one of the stories is Facebook's failure to address human trafficking and cartel violence on its platform. They really turn out to sort of have a hard time focusing on this and putting resources in. And every once in a while, it sort of suddenly pops up, and it is very embarrassing, and they have to run around. But they don't ever sort of manage to get it done on a day-to-day basis, if that makes sense.
JOHN YANG: And on that issue of drug cartels, human trafficking, Facebook provided us a statement that says: "In countries at risk for conflict and violence, we have a comprehensive strategy, including relying on global teams with native speakers covering over 50 languages, educational resources and partnerships with local experts and third-party fact-checkers to keep people safe." But, as I read your story, they -- employees may be flagging things, but there isn't necessarily reaction within the company.
JEFF HORWITZ: Yes. So, to start off with, Facebook offers its services in over 100 languages. So the 50 languages might not be as impressive as one would hope there. But, yes, I think there are a whole bunch of really dedicated people who are working for this company. They have been asked to solve really, really horrendous societal issues, or at least to address them on the platform, such as people being sold into indentured servitude in the Gulf states on their platform. And they sort of recommend the company do things. And then, oftentimes, the follow-through just isn't there.
JOHN YANG: In talking -- about one of your stories that got a lot of reaction, or has gotten a lot of reaction, is about Instagram, the photo sharing app that Facebook owns. You write that Facebook's and Instagram's own research shows the harmful effects this app has or can have on young people, and especially teenage girls.
JEFF HORWITZ: Yes, so this is something that, over the last -- since basically 2018-2019, they have been researching what they call negative social comparison. And I think at least, listen, when I started this stuff, I would have assumed that sort of Instagram's kind of like high school or something, right, in the sense that there's going to be social pressure, but we all get through it for the most part. I think the thing that was really surprising was how heavily it seemed to impact people who Instagram identified as already vulnerable. So, we make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls is a conclusion that they drew internally and presented to management. And, in fact, they found that, in some instances, for young women who were thinking about self-harm within the last month, that 6 percent of those traced that thought directly back to Instagram. So we're not talking necessarily huge numbers of people, but it is potentially life-or-death issues here.
JOHN YANG: Instagram's head of public policy providers with a statement about that story. She said: "We take these findings seriously. And we set up a specific effort to respond to this research and change Instagram for the better." These issues that you have you have uncovered about Facebook or you write about, how much are they -- to what extent do they drive the bottom line for Facebook? Do they drive their revenue, sort of define what Facebook is?
JEFF HORWITZ: Yes, I think Facebook has really sort of built itself around the idea that the more usage of Facebook is, the better the world is in general. And so they have kind of engineered this system to be as sticky as possible, to keep you coming back as often as possible, and to be as entertaining as possible. And they don't really -- focusing on the quality of the things and the types of content that succeeded wasn't really the focus. So I think it's becoming more of a focus now. They're thinking about it more, but it never has been the focus. And there still is a very large company attached to this work that wants to just sort of keep on doing the things that made it big and successful. I think, with the teenage mental health in particular, it's extremely awkward, because they have done this really good research. They have invested in understanding the problems in ways that I'm not convinced other tech giants actually have. But the problem is that the findings were that some of their products' key features are uniquely problematic, that Instagram focuses attention on the body, unlike competing social media apps, which focus on the face or on performance. And there's not an easy way to sort of get around that. So I think this is kind of a situation where they have realized the negative side effects of what they do, but I'm not totally clear that there's an easy way to address them, nor are they.
JOHN YANG: "The Facebook Files," a series in The Wall Street Journal. Jeff Horwitz, thank you very much.
JEFF HORWITZ: Thank you.
重点解析
1.social media 社交媒体
Social media has become a platform for advertisements.
社交媒体已经成为做广告的一个平台。
2.be riddled with 布满（不好的事物）
They were the principal shareholders in a bank riddled with corruption.
他们是一家腐败成风的银行的主要股东。
3.common thread 相同的思路,共同主线
A common thread runs through these discussions.
这些讨论都贯穿着一条共同的主线。
4.adhere to 遵守
All members of the association adhere to a strict code of practice.
所有该协会的成员都遵守严格的业务守则。
5.get around 有办法应付
None of these countries has found a way yet to get around the problem of the polarization of wealth.
这些国家均未找到一个方案来解决贫富两极分化的问题。
参考译文
朱迪·伍德乐夫：咱们来深入研究一下Facebook的内部运作。《华尔街日报》本周的一项调查称这家社交媒体巨头存在欺骗和危险。在它们的结论中，Facebook平台上“全是会造成伤害的缺陷，而这些缺陷的方式往往只有公司才能完全理解。”下面由约翰·杨为我们报道。
约翰·杨：名为《Facebook文件》的系列报道基于《华尔街日报》对Facebook公司内部文件的审查。里面的故事突显了Facebook处理或不处理其庞大数字帝国的一系列问题的方式，从Instagram对年轻人的负面影响到错误信息和暴力内容。杰夫·霍维茨是本系列的首席记者，现在加入我们的访谈。杰夫，感谢加入此次访谈。目前为止你已经发表了四篇文章，第五篇也即将发表。在你发现的这些故事中，有没有一个中心点或者一个结论？
杰夫·霍维茨，《华尔街日报》：大概有两个。一个是，在过去几年里，Facebook通过重要的研究，逐渐了解到了它对社会的影响。在某些情况下这些影响会变得相当严重。他们发现的并不都是好消息，相反，很多都是坏消息。我在想，公司是如何做这些工作的，如何回应的，或者更多的时候，是如何不回应的。我觉得这很重要。我觉得还有一个因素是，Facebook似乎很难管理自己，很难关注问题并解决问题，公司内部实际上很难遵守自己的规则。
约翰·杨：有很多这样的问题，当问题出现并被拿出来讨论时，Facebook的领导者，马克·扎克伯格和其他人，通常对我来说，会惊讶这竟然会是一个问题。但你发现了另一种情况。
杰夫·霍维茨：是的，考虑到该公司似乎并不期望滥用其平台，这是一件奇怪的事情，而那些滥用其平台的人现在应该已经进行了培训。所以，其中有一个事情是，Facebook未能在其平台上解决人口贩运和卡特尔暴力问题。他们真的很难专注于这个问题并投入资源。每隔一段时间，问题就突然出现，非常尴尬，他们不得不四处奔走。但他们从来没有设法一步步去解决这个问题，如果能解决的话。
约翰·杨：在贩毒集团和人口贩卖问题上，Facebook向我们提供了一份声明，声明中说：“在面临冲突和暴力风险的国家，我们有一个全面战略，包括依靠以超过50种语言为母语的全球团队、教育资源以及与当地专家和第三方事实核查员的合作，以此来确保人民的安全。”但是，当我读到你写的故事时，员工们可能会标记一些事情，但公司内部不一定会给出反应。
杰夫·霍维茨：是的。首先，Facebook提供超过100种语言的服务。因此，这50种语言可能并不像人们希望的那样令人印象深刻。但是，是的，我认为在这家公司有一群非常敬业的人。公司要求他们解决非常非常可怕的社会问题，或者至少是在平台上解决这些问题，比如海湾国家的人们在他们的平台上被卖为契约奴隶。他们建议公司做一些事情。然后，通常情况下，他们不会跟进。
约翰·杨：你写的故事里有一个引起了很多人的反应，或者已经引起了很多人的反应，是关于Instagram的，Facebook旗下的照片分享应用程序。你写道，Facebook和Instagram自己的研究表明，这款应用程序已经或可能对年轻人，尤其是少女，产生有害影响。
杰夫·霍维茨：是的，这件事，可以说从2018-2019年以来，他们一直在研究所谓的“负面社会比较”。我想，至少，听着，在我刚开始研究这个的时候，我以为Instagram有点像高中什么的，是的，从某种意义上来说会有社会压力，但大多数情况我们都能挺过去。我想真正令人惊讶的是，它对那些被Instagram定义为脆弱的用户影响太大了。所以就是说，我们让三分之一的十几岁女孩的身体形象问题变得更糟，这是她们在内部得出并提交给管理层的结论。事实上，他们发现，在某些情况下，在上个月有自残想法的年轻女性中，有6%直接将这一想法归咎于Instagram。所以，被影响的人或许不多，但这一问题关乎生死。
约翰·杨：Instagram的公共政策提供者负责人就此事发表了声明。她说：“我们很重视这些发现。我们做出了具体的措施来回应这项研究，让Instagram变得更好。”你发现或写过的关于Facebook的问题，它们在多大程度上推动了Facebook的底线？他们是否推动了收益，定义了Facebook？
杰夫·霍维茨：是的，我认为Facebook确实是围绕着这样一个理念建立起来的：使用Facebook的人越多，世界就越美好。所以他们把这个系统设计得尽可能有粘性，让你尽可能经常回来，尽可能有趣。他们并没有真正关注内容的质量和成功内容的类型，这并不是他们真正关注的重点。所以我认为现在它正变得越来越受关注。他们考虑的更多，但都不是重点。仍然有一家非常大的公司依附于这项工作，想要继续做一些事情，使它变得大而成功。我认为，尤其是青少年的心理健康，这非常尴尬，因为他们做了非常棒的研究。他们投资理解这些问题的方式我不相信其他科技巨头也有。但问题是，研究发现，他们的一些产品的关键功能有独特的问题，Instagram把注意力集中在身体上，不像其他社交媒体应用，只关注脸或表现。没有一个简单的方法来解决这个问题。所以我觉得情况是这样的，他们已经意识到自己的所为产生的负面影响，但我不确定有没有什么简单的方法能够解决这些问题，他们也不确定。
约翰·杨：《华尔街日报》的《Facebook文件》系列。杰夫·霍维茨，非常感谢。
杰夫·霍维茨：谢谢。
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