VOA慢速英语2016 Facebook的CEO否认虚假新闻影响美国大选

Facebook CEO Denies False News Influenced US Election Facebook的CEO否认虚假新闻影响美国大选

Facebook founder 1 Mark Zuckerberg has denied that untrue stories appearing on the social media site affected 2 the results of the American presidential election.

Facebook创始人马克·扎克伯格否认社交媒体网站上出现的虚假故事影响了美国总统选举的结果。

In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg said many people were questioning whether fake news had influenced the election results. He said he takes such questions seriously and that Facebook has a responsibility to try to prevent fake stories from spreading.

在Facebook的一个帖子中，扎克伯格说，许多人怀疑那则假新闻影响了选举结果。他说，他严肃地处理这个问题，并且表示Facebook有责任设法阻止虚假故事的传播。

Last week, businessman Donald Trump 3 became president-elect of the United States after defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

上周，商人唐纳德·特朗普击败前国务卿希拉里·克林顿当选美国总统。

The voting was very close. Many opinion surveys in the days before the election had predicted that Clinton would win.

两人的投票数非常接近。选举前几天的很多项民意调查都预测克林顿会赢。

Zuckerberg said that, of all the stories and other content posted on Facebook, about “99 percent” of what people see is real. “Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes 5. The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan 6 view, or even to politics,” he said.

扎克伯格说，人们在Facebook上看到的所有故事和其他内容中，有“99％”是真实的。 “只有极少数是假新闻和骗局。骗局的确存在，但它不仅仅涉及一个党派的观点，或政治内容，”他说。

The Facebook founder said this makes it “extremely unlikely” that fake news stories changed the election results in one direction or the other.

Facebook的创始人说，假新闻不可能改变选举的结果，让其向一个方向或另一个方向发展。

But he added that he doesn't want such stories to appear on Facebook. “Our goal is to show people the content they will find most meaningful, and people want accurate news,” he said.

但他补充说，他不希望Facebook上出现这样的故事。“我们的目标是向人们展示对他们最有意义的内容，人们需要真实的新闻，”他说。

Zuckerberg also commented on the issue while attending a technology conference last week in California. He said he found it “a pretty crazy idea” that people would be influenced by fake news on Facebook.

扎克伯格在上周加利福尼亚参加技术会议时也就这个问题发表了评论。他说他认为人们会受到Facebook上假新闻影响的想法很疯狂。

“Voters make decisions based on their lived experiences,” he said. “You don't generally go wrong when you trust that people understand what they care about and what's important to them, and you build systems that reflect that.”

“选民根据他们的生活经验做出决定，”他说。 “当你明白人们知道自己关心什么，什么对他们很重要，然后建立反映这一点的系统，你通常不会出错。”

In his post, Zuckerberg said Facebook depends a lot on users to identify and inform the company about fake stories appearing in users' News Feeds. He said the service is working on new ways to prevent untrue news from spreading, but admitted that “identifying the ‘truth' is complicated.”

在他的文章中，扎克伯格说，Facebook很大程度上依赖用户来识别其他用户新闻提要中出现的假故事，并由他们通知公司。他说，这项服务推出新的防止虚假新闻传播的方法，但他也承认，“辨别新闻的真伪是复杂的。”

He explained that some stories are clearly false. But others get part of a story right, and then add wrong details or leave out important facts. “I believe we must be extremely cautious about becoming arbiters 8 of truth ourselves,” Zuckerberg said.

他解释说，有一些故事很明显是假的。但有一些故事包含了真实内容，然后添加虚假的细节或去掉重要的情节。 “我认为在判断事务的真伪时，我们必须很小心，”扎克伯格说。

Recently, Facebook teamed up with members of the First Draft Coalition 9 to come up with ways to prevent fake news. The coalition includes companies such as The New York Times, Twitter and the broadcaster CNN. The group was formed to answer the growing number of fake news stories on social media sites.

最近，Facebook与第一草案联盟的成员合作，制定了防止假新闻传播的方法。联盟包括《纽约时报》、Twitter和广播公司CNN等公司。该小组的成立是对社交媒体网站上越来越多假新闻的回击。

Facebook has said it uses an algorithm, not human beings, to choose its “trending news.” An algorithm is a series of steps used to complete a computer process or solve a mathematical problem. This method has been questioned because many untrue stories are still getting published.

Facebook说过，它们不是通过人工来判定“热门新闻”，而是使用一种算法。算法是一系列用于完成计算机过程或解决数学问题的步骤。因为许多虚假故事的发布，这个算法受到了质疑。

Media experts say much of the fake news is posted to generate advertising 10, while other stories are designed to influence political opinion.

媒体专家说，大部分的假新闻是为了开展广告，还有一些是为了影响政治意见。

Zuckerberg was asked whether Facebook could have predicted the election results based on its large amount of user data.

有人问扎克伯格，Facebook是否可以根据其大量的用户数据预测选举结果。

Hedid not answer the question directly. But he did say that no one should be surprised that Donald Trump had more followers 11 on Facebook than Hillary Clinton. He said this is because Trump's posts got a lot more engagement – both support and opposition 12 – from Facebook users.

哈迪没有直接回答这个问题。但他说，人们都清楚唐纳德·特朗普在Facebook上的追随者比希拉里·克林顿多。他说，因为特朗普的帖子得到了更多Facebook用户的回应，即便是有支持的也有反对的。

Overall, Zuckerberg said he is pleased that Facebook was able to connect people with each other and with their candidates during the campaign. He noted 13 that the company helped more than 2 million people register to vote, and helped users share billions of posts and comments about the election.

扎克伯格说，总体上说，他很高兴Facebook能够在竞选期间成为人们和候选人交流的途径。他指出，该公司帮助200多万人注册投票，并帮助用户分享数十亿个关于选举的文章和评论。

Words in This Story

fake - adj. not true or real

hoax 4 – n. trick meant to make people believe something false

partisan – adj. strongly supporting a particular leader, group, or cause

accurate – adj. correct or exact

complicated – adj. hard to understand or deal with

cautious – adj. taking care to avoid risk or danger

arbiter 7 – n. person who decides what is right or proper

team up – ?phrasal verb. to join with someone to work together

engagement – n. – level of involvement in something