《经济学人》双语：科技狂人马斯克面对言论自由问题也束手无策？

原文标题：
Social media
A $44bn education
What running Twitter has taught Elon Musk about free speech
社交媒体
价值440亿美元的教训
埃隆·马斯克通过经营推特学会了什么是言论自由
 
He has had a crash course in the trade-offs in protecting free expression
他上了一堂关于保护言论自由与权衡问题的速成课

[Paragraph 1]
ELON MUSK’s two months running Twitter has been an unhappy experiment.
埃隆·马斯克经营了推特两个月，但结果不太愉快。
 
The social network’s 250m users have endured a wearying saga in which Mr Musk is the central character.
推特2.5亿用户已经厌烦了一连串以马斯克为主角的事件。

 
Advertisers have fled.
广告商也纷纷逃离。
 
Twitter, which lost $221m in 2021, is now on track to lose $4bn a year, by one estimate.
据悉，推特在2021年亏损了2.21亿美元，今年估计要亏损40亿美元。
 
The damage has spread to Tesla, Mr Musk’s carmaker, part of the reason it has lost half a trillion dollars in market value since early September, costing Mr Musk the title of the world’s richest man.
损失已经牵涉到了马斯克名下的汽车制造产业特斯拉。这也是该公司自9月初以来市值蒸发5000亿美元的部分原因，马斯克也因此失去了世界首富的头衔。
 

[Paragraph 2]
On December 19th it looked as if Mr Musk might throw in the towel, after Twitter users voted for him to step down as chief executive.
12月19日，推特用户投票希望他卸任首席执行官，马斯克似乎也想放弃了。
 
It has been a costly adventure.
这是一次代价高昂的尝试。
 
But in one sense his turbulent stewardship of the social network has done the rest of the world a favour.
但在某种意义上，他对推特的混乱管理方式为世界其他地区带来了好处。
 
In two short months Mr Musk has been through a public crash course in the principles of free speech, neatly demonstrating the trade-offs involved in protecting expression online.
在短短两个月的时间里，马斯克上了一堂关于言论自由的速成课，生动地诠释了保护网络言论所涉及的权衡问题。
 
[Paragraph 3]
From the outside, Twitter seemed simple to someone whose day job was building self-driving cars and space rockets.
从表面上看，对于一个日常工作是制造自动驾驶汽车和太空火箭的马斯克，运营推特似乎十分简单。
 
Mr Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist”, had grown concerned (with some justification) that Twitter had been captured by censorious left-wing scolds.
自诩为“言论自由绝对主义者”的马斯克越来越担心推特已经被吹毛求疵的左翼言论攻击者利用了，虽然这也有一定根据。
 
Shortly after agreeing to buy the platform he explained his approach to moderation: “By ‘free speech’, I simply mean that which matches the law.”
在同意收购该平台后不久，他解释了自己的审核方式:“所谓‘言论自由’，我只是指那些符合法律的言论。”
 
[Paragraph 4]
In practice he has found that the right to speech conflicts with other rights.
在实践中，他发现言论权与其他权利存在冲突。
 
One is safety.
其一是安全权。
 
Last month Mr Musk said that his commitment to free speech meant he would not ban a Twitter account that tweeted the whereabouts of his private jet, even though he considered this a security risk.
上个月，马斯克表示，他对言论自由的承诺意味着，他不会禁言一个发布他私人飞机位置的推特账户，尽管这是一种安全风险。
 
But on December 14th he changed his mind after a “stalker” bothered his son.
但在12月14日，在一个“跟踪狂”骚扰了他的儿子之后，他改变了想法。
 
After suspending the jet account, Twitter introduced rules outlawing the reporting of others’ real-time locations.
在封锁该账户后，Twitter出台了规定，禁止报告他人的实时位置。
 
[Paragraph 5]
As well as limiting speech in the name of safety, Mr Musk has curtailed it to avoid the lesser sin of causing offence.
除了以安全的名义限制言论外，马斯克还限制了冒犯他人的言论。
 
In October the number of views of tweets that Twitter deems “hate speech” doubled, as users tested the limits of Mr Musk’s new regime.
去年10月，推特认定的“仇恨言论”的推文点击量翻了一番，用户们在挑战马斯克新制度的极限。
 
Rather than allow this legal-but-nasty content, Twitter cracked down.
推特没有允许这种合法但令人厌恶的内容，相反采取了严厉打击措施。
 
In November hateful tweets recorded one-third fewer views than before the takeover.
11月，仇恨相关推文的浏览量比收购前减少了三分之一。
 
Earlier this month Twitter suspended the account of Ye, a rapper formerly known as Kanye West, after he posted a picture of a swastika within a Star of David—an image that, however grotesque, is nonetheless permitted by America’s laws.
本月早些时候，推特禁封了Ye的账户，他是一位说唱歌手，原名Kanye West，起因是他在推特上发布了一张犹太星内有纳粹万字符号的照片。尽管这种图像很怪异，但在美国法律是允许的。
 
[Paragraph 6]
Mr Musk even limited speech when it was bad for profits.
当出现不利于推特利益的言论时，马斯克也采取了限制措施。
 
After pranksters sent tweets aping brands like Pepsi (“Coke is better”) and Nestlé (“We steal your water and sell it back to you lol”), Twitter outlawed such behaviour to stop advertisers fleeing.
恶作剧者在推特上模仿百事可乐，但却称赞“可口可乐更好”。恶搞雀巢，称“我们偷了你的水，然后再卖给你，哈哈”。很多品牌都没能幸免这种恶作剧。在此之后，推特禁止了此类行为，希望不会损失太多广告商。
 
Then, to stem an exodus of users, on December 18th Twitter said it would ban people from linking to rival social networks or posting their usernames.
为阻止大量用户流失，推特在12月18日表示，它将禁止用户推广竞争对手的社交软件或发布他们的用户名。
 
When questions were raised as to whether regulators would consider such a move anticompetitive, Mr Musk apologised and free speech was restored.
当有人质疑监管机构是否会认为此举是反竞争行为时，马斯克进行了道歉并恢复了相关账户的言论自由。 
[Paragraph 7]
All this holds two lessons for whoever follows Mr Musk as Twitter’s boss, should he leave.
如果马斯克离开，或许能为他的推特继任者提供了两条经验。
 
One is to keep content moderation at arm’s length.
一与内容审核保持一定距离。
 
The person deciding whether a post is acceptable is compromised if they are also responsible for boosting engagement among users and spending by advertisers.
如果审核帖子的人还兼职负责提高用户的参与度和广告商的支出，那他将深受其害。
 
Mark Zuckerberg (whose reputation has risen in light of Mr Musk’s pratfalls) realised this and outsourced Facebook’s biggest moderation headaches to an independent “oversight board” in 2020.
马克·扎克伯格（因马斯克的神坛跌落而名气上升），他很早就意识到这一点并在2020年将脸书最令人头疼的审核问题外包给了一个独立的“监督委员会”。
 
[Paragraph 8]
The second lesson is that moderation has no clean solutions, even for “technokings” with strong views on free speech.
第二个教训是，审核问题没有最优解，即使是强烈支持言论自由的“技术巨头”也是如此。
 
Free expression is not a problem with a solution bounded by the laws of physics that can be hacked together if only enough coders pull an all-nighter.
言论自由并不是一个根据物理定律就可以找到解决方法的问题。因为解决物理定律问题，只要有足够多的程序员通宵工作就行（言论问题则不可以）。
 
It is a dilemma requiring messy trade-offs that leave no one happy.
这是一个混乱的权衡困境，无人能从中受益。
 
In such a business, humility and transparency count for a lot.
在这个行业，谦逊和透明至关重要。
 
[Paragraph 9]
These are novel concepts to some in Silicon Valley, who are impatient to tear up the established ways of doing things.
对于硅谷的一些人来说，这些都是新奇的概念，他们迫不及待地要打破既定的做事方式。
 
But just as cryptocurrency enthusiasts have recently received a bracing lesson in the value of boring old financial prudence, so Mr Musk and his fellow free-speech enthusiasts are learning why free expression has caused many to scratch their heads over the centuries.
但就像加密货币爱好者最近收到的教训一样（由于他们厌倦了传统的财政稳健政策，尝试加密货币而血亏），马斯克先生和他的自由言论爱好者们也收到一个教训，即为什么几个世纪以来，许多人都对言论自由问题束手无策。
 
Tech valuationshave suffered a sharp correction in 2022.
科技公司的估值在2022年经历了大幅调整。
 
It has also been a chastening year for tech egos.
这也是令科技狂人备受打击的一年。
 
（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量731左右）
原文出自：2022年12月24日《The Economist》Leaders版块。
精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路

本文翻译整理: Maree 本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）
当地时间2022年12月12日，据《福布斯》富豪榜最新数据显示，埃隆·马斯克已不是世界首富。
 
大卫星（即六芒星，又名大卫之盾、所罗门封印、犹太星），是犹太教和犹太文化的标志。以色列建国后将大卫星放在以色列国旗上，因此大卫星也成为了以色列的象征。
 
【重点句子】（3 个）
In two short months Mr Musk has been through a public crash course in the principles of free speech, neatly demonstrating the trade-offs involved in protecting expression online.
在短短两个月的时间里，马斯克上了一堂关于言论自由的速成课，生动地诠释了保护网络言论所涉及的权衡问题。
 
In practice he has found that the right to speech conflicts with other rights.
在实践中，他发现言论权与其他权利存在冲突。
 
Free expression is not a problem with a solution bounded by the laws of physics that can be hacked together if only enough coders pull an all-nighter.
言论自由并不是一个根据物理定律就可以找到解决方法的问题。因为解决物理定律问题，只要有足够多的程序员通宵工作就行（言论问题则不可以）。