On New Year’s eve, Pieter Van Ostaeyen hung out with his brother’s family before skipping the midnight celebrations and going home to work.
新年前夕，彼得•范奥斯塔延(Pieter Van Ostaeyen)与哥哥一家呆在一起。之后，他没有参加午夜的庆祝，直接回家工作了。
This pursuit — toiled over at night and in his holidays — is not overspill from his day job as an enterprise architect and business analyst. Rather it is an all-consuming passion: to use Twitter and Facebook to track principally Belgian radicals fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria.
范奥斯塔延的正式职业是企业架构师和商业分析师。他在晚上和假期辛苦从事的这份工作并不是他白天没干完的部分，而是一份他热爱的、并倾注全部精力的事业：使用Twitter和Facebook来追踪极端分子的动向，主要目标是效忠伊拉克圣战组织“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国”(ISIS)以及叙利亚圣战组织Jabhat al-Nusra的比利时极端分子。

As jihadis take to social media to find new recruits and broadcast their activities, so bloggers are able to track their activity from afar. Some do it as part of their job, but others such as Mr Van Ostaeyen, who is not recompensed for this work, hope one day to make it pay.
随着圣战分子开始使用社交媒体招募新成员并宣传他们的活动，博主们可以远程追踪圣战分子的动向。对一些人而言，这是他们工作的一部分。然而，范奥斯塔延等其他人不从这份工作中领薪水，他们希望有一天自己能得到回报。
After last week’s attacks in Paris on Charlie Hebdo magazine’s office and a kosher supermarket, Mr Van Ostaeyen, who lives in Mechelen, Belgium, waded through his social media feeds, trying to detect significant information about the threat from Belgian fighters. Amid the feeds, he says, was one Belgian Isis fighter in Iraq calling on people back home to follow suit.
今年1月7日，法国巴黎发生了《查理周刊》(Charlie Hebdo)杂志社枪击案和犹太超市袭击案。此后，住在比利时梅赫伦(Mechelen)的范奥斯塔延浏览了他关注的社交媒体源发布的大量信息，尝试从中发现来自比利时极端分子的威胁的关键性线索。他说，在这些消息源中，有一名身在伊拉克的比利时籍ISIS战士呼吁人们在本国发动类似袭击。
Mr Van Ostaeyen says his feelings on the attackers are summed up in a blogpost by Clint Watts, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “Many, if not most, western jihadis are deeply troubled souls, at times more confused about their intentions and motivations than we are.”
范奥斯塔延说，他对这些袭击者的看法可以用美国外交政策研究所(FPRI)高级研究员克林特•沃茨(Clint Watts)博文中的一句话总结。“就算不是大多数，至少有很多西方圣战分子是饱受困扰的人，有时他们对自己的意图和动机比我们还迷惑。”
There is a remarkable amount of information to be found about home­grown radicals and those who go to Syria and Iraq to fight, he says. Some research has been relatively straightforward — once, for example, Mr Van Ostaeyen created a false identity of a fictional foreign fighter. He picked a photo of a man, his face concealed, waving an Isis flag on a mountain. Pretty soon he got 1,400 “friends” from across Europe.
范奥斯塔延表示，关于成长于本国的极端分子，以及那些到叙利亚和伊拉克参战的人，还有相当数量的信息有待发掘。他进行的一些调查相对简单。比如，有一次他创建了一个外国圣战战士的虚假身份。他挑选了一张蒙面男性在山上挥舞ISIS旗帜的照片。很快他就拥有了1400个来自欧洲各地的“朋友”。
“Syria is the most social mediated war ever,” says Mr Van Ostaeyen. “Social media is a propaganda channel.”
“叙利亚战争是迄今为止受社交媒体影响最大的战争，” 范奥斯塔延说，“社交媒体是一种宣传渠道。”
This comes at a time when journalists have become trophy targets, shown vividly by the Isis beheadings of American reporters James Foley and Steven Sotloff. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 79 reporters have been killed in Syria since 1992, and in Iraq the death toll stands at 166.
最近这段时期，记者成了圣战战士向外界炫耀的战利品，ISIS斩首美国记者詹姆斯•弗利(James Foley)和史蒂芬•索特洛夫(Steven Sotloff)的事件鲜明地体现出这一点。保护记者委员会(Committee to Protect Journalists)的数据显示，自1992年以来，有79名记者在叙利亚被杀，而在伊拉克身亡的记者达到了166名。
The new breed of researcher analyses fighters at a distance rather than in the conflict zone. Currently writing a book on the Middle East from the crusades to today, Mr Van Ostaeyen sees Eliot Higgins, who became known by his blogging name Brown Moses, as a game-changer, demonstrating that the work can provide an income.
新型调查者并不亲临冲突一线，而是从远离冲突的地方分析这些战士。范奥斯塔延最近在撰写一本书，主题是从十字军东征到当代的中东。在他眼中，以博客“布朗•摩西”(Brown Moses)出名的埃利奥特•希金斯(Eliot Higgins)是一个改变游戏规则的人，他向世人展示这份工作能够提供收入。
Mr Higgins, a video games enthusiast and stay-at-home dad, who had previously worked in finance ad­ministration, has become a munitions expert, tracking the Syrian war from his home in Leicester in the UK. “The work he has been doing [on Syrian weapons and the downing of the MH17 plane] has been groundbreaking,” says Mr Van Ostaeyen. “He’s a good example of an independent, writing what he wants.”
希金斯是一个电子游戏爱好者和全职父亲。他之前从事财务管理的工作，后来成为了军火情报专家，从位于英国莱斯特(Leicester)的家中追踪叙利亚战争。“他做的（关于叙利亚武器和MH17航班坠机事件的）调查是开创性的，”范奥斯塔延说，“他是一个独立写手的典范，他撰写他想写的东西。”
Mr Van Ostaeyen got into this work through his interest in history and Arabic culture, which he studied at university. When the popular uprising in Syria began in 2011 — a country he had visited — his work intensified.
范奥斯塔延对大学里学习过的历史和阿拉伯文化很感兴趣，这让他投身于这份工作。2011年叙利亚发生动乱，这是一个他曾经踏足的国家，他的工作量也因此变大了。
“I tried to make people in the west understand what was going on. I found it shameful that no one was doing anything.” He zoned in on foreign fighters. “Social media is my main source of information. It’s unbelievable how much information is out there.”
“我试图让西方的人们理解正在发生的事情。可耻的是，谁也没有在这方面有所作为，”他将外国战士锁定为关注对象，“社交媒体是我的主要信息来源。从中获得的海量信息让人难以置信。”
There is also a vast array of fake material. To make the switch from amateur to professional, bloggers must be scrupulous.
其中也有大量虚假内容。要从业余爱好者转变成专业人士，博主们必须一丝不苟。
Reputation is everything, says Mr Higgins, who now gives talks to journalists. “It’s all you have. You have to be so careful. It requires a lot of work to produce reliable material.”
希金斯表示，信誉就是一切。他现在为记者开讲座。“这是你拥有的一切。你必须非常小心。需要很多工作才能产生可信的材料。”
Obsessiveness is a trait Mr Higgins looks for in collaborators, although he is cautious that it is not ideology fuelling their passion.
对这份工作的强烈兴趣是希金斯在寻找合作者时看重的特质，不过他很谨慎地避免让意识形态成为驱动这份事业的动力。
A hazard of the work is witnessing horrifying acts of violence. “The first beheading I felt very sick — now I am numb to it,” says Mr Van Ostaeyen.
这份工作的危险之一是目睹可怕的暴力场面。“第一次（看）斩首的时候，我觉得非常恶心——现在我对斩首已经麻木了，”范奥斯塔延说。
Mr Higgins says anyone who works with this sort of material has to “learn to mentally compartmentalise”. It is, he says, the small things that catch you off-guard.”
希金斯说，任何在工作中要和这种材料打交道的人都必须“学会在心理上与之隔开”。他说，让你措手不及的是一些小事。
Professional res­earchers deploy their own strategies. JM Berger, the author of Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, started life as a journalist and combines traditional reporting techniques with social media analysis. He has learnt to make a quick and efficient assessment of violence in videos. At key mo­ments, he mutes the sound. “The most important thing is to frequently connect with life outside of work and remember that even when extremist movements are most successful they still only represent a tiny [section] of people.”
专业的调查者运用他们自己的策略。JM•伯杰(JM Berger)是《圣战者乔：以伊斯兰之名奔赴战场的美国人》(Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam)这本书的作者。他最开始做过记者。现在他将传统的新闻报道技法和社交媒体分析结合在一起。他已经学会对视频里的暴力行为进行快速有效的评估。在关键时刻，他会把视频静音。“最重要的事是经常与工作之外的生活保持联系，记住即使极端分子的行动非常成功，他们也依然只是人群中的很小的（一部分）。”
Phillip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland who writes the blog Hizballah Cavalcade, which focuses on Shia Islamist militarism in the Middle East, notes that some groups want analysts to reproduce their content to legitimise and publicise it. “I very rarely disclose [which] social media accounts I follow, and I don’t publicly redistribute their propaganda,” says Mr Berger, whose next book will focus on Isis.
来自马里兰大学(University of Maryland)的研究人员菲利普•史密斯(Phillip Smyth)撰写一个叫“Hizballah Cavalcade”的博客，主要关注中东什叶派伊斯兰好战主义。他提到，一些群体希望分析人士将它们发布的内容重新撰写出来，以使其合法化和公开化。“我极少公开我关注哪些社交媒体账号，我也不会公开发布它们的宣传内容，”伯杰说。他下一本书的主题是ISIS。
The majority of people do not need to view it, believes Mr Berger. “This violent material is intended to push viewers’ buttons and provoke emotional reactions that serve the extremists’ interests.” However, policy makers and re­searchers should see some of the material, he says, in order to understand the cult of violence that Isis in particular is propagating. Mr Van Ostaeyen sees such videos as source materials to be used by historians, human rights watchers and possibly future war crimes prosecutors.
伯杰认为，大多数人不必观看这些内容。“暴力内容的目的是惹急观看者，引起情感上的反应，为极端分子的利益服务。”然而，他表示政策制定者和研究者应该看一些这种内容，以便理解ISIS特别着重宣传的暴力崇拜。范奥斯塔延认为，历史学家、人权观察者、可能还有未来的战争罪检察官应该使用这类原始材料。
The work is important, he believes. “I want people to be aware why people go to fight in Syria,” he says. Nonetheless, there is a cost to the 38-year-old’s work. The intensity he devotes to his extracurricular job has meant he has lost social contacts. “It’s not a life. I live alone with a cat.”
范奥斯塔延相信，这份工作非常重要。“我希望人们意识到，为什么有人会去叙利亚参战，”他说。尽管如此，对38岁的范奥斯塔延来说，这份工作还是有代价的。他对这份业余工作投入甚多，这意味着他失去了社会接触。“这称不上生活。我和一只猫孤独地生活在一起。”