TED演讲｜当假新闻被疯狂转发时，我们离真相还有多远？

今天推荐的演讲者是：Stephanie Busari，发布于2017年的TED演讲大会！

在这个自媒体时代，各种新闻和资讯充斥着我们的生活。为了博眼球，带舆论的假新闻也混在其中。我们要如何鉴别各种新闻，离真相更进一步呢？

How fake news does real harm

Stephanie BusariI want to tell you a story about a girl. But I can't tell you her real name. So let's just call her Hadiza.

我想讲一个女孩子的故事。但是我不能说出她的真名。就叫她哈迪扎好了。

Hadiza is 20. She's shy, but she has a beautiful smile that lights up her face. But she's in constant pain. And she will likely be on medication for the rest of her life.

哈迪扎今年20岁。她很害羞，但是笑起来很好看，活力四射。但她生活在痛苦中。她很可能需要终身药物治疗。

Do you want to know why? Hadiza is a Chibok girl, and on April 14, 2014, she was kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists. She managed to escape, though, by jumping off the truck that was carrying the girls. 

你们想知道为什么吗？哈迪扎来自奇博克，在2014年4月14日，她被“博科圣地”恐怖分子绑架。不过，她成功逃过一劫，跳下了载满女孩的卡车。

But when she landed, she broke both her legs, and she had to crawl on her tummy to hide in the bushes. She told me she was terrified that Boko Haram would come back for her. She was one of 57 girls who would escape by jumping off trucks that day.

但是她的腿在跳车时摔断了，她不得不爬进灌木丛躲藏。她告诉我，她当时吓坏了，害怕“博科圣地”的人会回来抓她。那天跳车逃生的共有57名女孩，她是其中之一。

This story, quite rightly, caused ripples around the world. People like Michelle Obama, Malala and others lent their voices in protest, and at about the same time -- I was living in London at the time -- I was sent from London to Abuja to cover the World Economic Forum that Nigeria was hosting for the first time. But when we arrived, it was clear that there was only one story in town.

这个故事很快在全球范围内引起关注。米歇尔·奥巴马、马拉拉等人都加入声援，与此同时——当时我住在伦敦——我被派到阿布贾去报道世界经济论坛，那是（论坛）首次在尼日利亚举办。但在当时的阿布贾，很明显（绑架案）才是大家唯一关心的事。

We put the government under pressure. We asked tough questions about what they were doing to bring these girls back. Understandably, they weren't too happy with our line of questioning, and let's just say we received our fair share of "alternative facts."

我们给政府施加了很大的压力。问了很多尖锐的问题，询问他们解救这些女孩子的进展。可以理解的是，他们不太喜欢我们咄咄逼人的问题，因此我们只得到了一些“莫须有的事实”。

Influential Nigerians were telling us at the time that we were naïve, we didn't understand the political situation in Nigeria. But they also told us that the story of the Chibok girls was a hoax. Sadly, this hoax narrative has persisted, and there are still people in Nigeria today who believe that the Chibok girls were never kidnapped.

当时尼日利亚一些有影响力的人告诉我们我们太天真了，根本不了解尼日利亚的政治局势。但他们也告诉我们奇博克女生绑架案是假的。可悲的是，这个虚假的版本依然流传着，直到今天还有很多尼日利亚人认为奇博克女生绑架案没有发生过。

Yet I was talking to people like these -- devastated parents, who told us that on the day Boko Haram kidnapped their daughters, they ran into the Sambisa Forest after the trucks carrying their daughters. They were armed with machetes, but they were forced to turn back because Boko Haram had guns.

但我的采访是真实的，我采访过那些绝望的父母，他们告诉我，“博科圣地”绑架了他们女儿的那天，他们追着卡车冲进了塞比萨森林。他们带着大砍刀，却被迫退了回来，因为“博科圣地”的人拿着枪。

For two years, inevitably, the news agenda moved on, and for two years, we didn't hear much about the Chibok girls. Everyone presumed they were dead. But in April last year, I was able to obtain this video. This is a still from the video that Boko Haram filmed as a proof of life, and through a source, I obtained this video.

2年过去了，不可避免的，媒体的关注越来越少，过去2年，我们已经很少听到奇博克女学生的消息。所有人都推测她们已经死了。但是去年4月，我通过某种途径拿到了这个录像。这是从录像中抽出的一幅画面，“博科圣地”用录像证明她们还活着，通过某种渠道，我拿到了这份录像。

But before I could publish it, I had to travel to the northeast of Nigeria to talk to the parents, to verify it. I didn't have to wait too long for confirmation. One of the mothers, when she watched the video, told me that if she could have reached into the laptop and pulled our her child from the laptop, she would have done so. For those of you who are parents, like myself, in the audience, you can only imagine the anguish that that mother felt.

但在我公开录像之前，我需要去尼日利亚的东北部，去找女孩的父母，确认（录像的）真实性。我几乎立刻得到了确认。其中一位母亲看到这段录像后告诉我，她多么希望能够把手伸进笔记本电脑把她的女儿从屏幕里拽出来，她一秒钟都不能等。在座的各位，如果你们像我一样，已经为人父母，你大概就能想象到那位母亲所承受的巨大痛苦。

This video would go on to kick-start negotiation talks with Boko Haram. And a Nigerian senator told me that because of this video they entered into those talks, because they had long presumed that the Chibok girls were dead. Twenty-one girls were freed in October last year. Sadly, nearly 200 of them still remain missing.

这段录像成为跟“博科圣地”谈判的起点。一位尼日利亚议员告诉我，正是因为这段录像，他们才开始进行谈判，因为他们很久以前就已经推测这些奇博克女生已经死了。去年10月，21名女生得以被释放。不幸的是，仍有约200名女生下落不明。

I must confess that I have not been a dispassionate observer covering this story. I am furious when I think about the wasted opportunities to rescue these girls. I am furious when I think about what the parents have told me, that if these were daughters of the rich and the powerful, they would have been found much earlier. And I am furious that the hoax narrative, I firmly believe, caused a delay; it was part of the reason for the delay in their return.

我必须承认，在报道这则新闻的时候，我并不是个中立的观察者。每当我想起那么多解救她们的机会被白白浪费的时候，我就非常的愤怒。每当我想起那些女孩的父母告诉我，如果她们的家庭富有且有权势，那么肯定早就被解救出来了的时候我就非常的愤怒。我还愤怒于那些假新闻，我非常肯定，这些假新闻拖延了救援，导致女生们没能早些回家。

This illustrates to me the deadly danger of fake news. So what can we do about it? There are some very smart people, smart engineers at Google and Facebook, who are trying to use technology to stop the spread of fake news. But beyond that, I think everybody here -- you and I -- we have a role to play in that. We are the ones who share the content. We are the ones who share the stories online. In this day and age, we're all publishers, and we have responsibility.

这让我看到了假新闻的致命危险性。那么我们能做什么？在谷歌和脸书有一群非常聪明的工程师，努力用高科技手段来阻止假新闻的传播。但除此之外，我相信在座的每一位——包括你和我——都有义务参与其中。我们是分享新闻的人。我们在网上传播报道。在当今社会，我们都是出版者，我们都承担着责任。

In my job as a journalist, I check, I verify. I trust my gut, but I ask tough questions. Why is this person telling me this story? What do they have to gain by sharing this information? Do they have a hidden agenda? I really believe that we must all start to ask tougher questions of information that we discover online.

作为一名记者，我检查和确认（报道的）真实性。我相信直觉，也提出质疑。为什么这个人要告诉我这个故事？他们分享这些信息的目的是什么？他们是否暗地里另有所图？我真的认为，从现在开始，对于从网上得到的信息，我们需要提出质疑。

Research shows that some of us don't even read beyond headlines before we share stories. Who here has done that? I know I have. But what if we stopped taking information that we discover at face value? What if we stop to think about the consequence of the information that we pass on and its potential to incite violence or hatred? What if we stop to think about the real-life consequences of the information that we share? Thank you very much for listening.

研究显示，我们中有些人在转发一条新闻之前，甚至只看了一眼标题。你们谁这么干过？我就这么干过。但是如果我们停止转发那些我们匆匆一瞥看到的信息会怎样？如果我们停下来想一想，我们的转发可能包含暴力或仇恨言论，会有什么后果，会怎样？如果我们在转发之前，认真的想一想这样的行为会对真实的世界造成什么影响，又会怎样？非常感谢大家的聆听。