誰來約束大型科技公司的壟斷權(quán)力？

The World Economic Forum in Davos has just opened. As the forum of movers and shakers has become bigger — some would say too big — over the years, it has turned into more of a dealmaking venue than a thought leadership salon. But Davos is still the greatest place in the world to put a finger to the wind and see what the key economic and political issues of the year will be. I’m betting that top of the list will be Big Tech’s attempt to rebrand itself.

達(dá)沃斯世界經(jīng)濟(jì)論壇(WEF)已經(jīng)落下帷幕。隨著這一推動(dòng)者和塑造者的論壇逐年變大(有些人會(huì)說太大了)，它已經(jīng)變成了一個(gè)交易場所，而不是一個(gè)思想領(lǐng)袖沙龍。但是，達(dá)沃斯仍是這個(gè)世界上觀望風(fēng)向、看看今年的關(guān)鍵經(jīng)濟(jì)和政治問題將是什么的最佳場所。我敢打賭，排在首位的問題將是大型科技公司重塑自我的嘗試。

The Fangs — Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google — are having a crisis that encompasses the cognitive, the political and the economic. Activists, regulators and even some tech executives themselves are calling for an investigation into the addictive nature of smartphones and social media.

FANG——Facebook、亞馬遜(Amazon)、Netflix和谷歌(Google)的統(tǒng)稱——正在經(jīng)歷一場引起學(xué)界、政界和經(jīng)濟(jì)界討論的危機(jī)?；顒?dòng)人士、監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)、甚至一些科技公司高管本人都在呼吁對(duì)智能手機(jī)和社交媒體的成癮特性進(jìn)行調(diào)查。

Just last week, Congress once again grilled Facebook, Google and Twitter about their management of extremist content. The bottom line? They have no clear answers about how they are going to prevent their platforms from being used for things such as Russian election meddling, or by governments in places such as Myanmar to prepare their populations for death squads and genocide.

就在最近，美國國會(huì)再次詢問了Facebook、谷歌和Twitter對(duì)極端主義內(nèi)容的管理情況。底線在哪里?對(duì)于如何防止它們的平臺(tái)被用于諸如俄羅斯干預(yù)選舉的事情，或是被緬甸等地的政府用來讓民眾準(zhǔn)備好參加敢死隊(duì)和實(shí)行種族滅絕，這些公司沒有給出明確的答案。

Indeed, there is evidence linking the rise of platform technologies with declining trust in liberal democracy itself. Fully 65 per cent of the population gets its news from platforms and aggregator sites, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer survey of 28 countries.

的確，有證據(jù)表明，平臺(tái)技術(shù)的興起與人們對(duì)自由民主本身的信任度下降有關(guān)。根據(jù)對(duì)28個(gè)國家進(jìn)行的《愛德曼信任度調(diào)查報(bào)告》(Edelman Trust Barometer)，整整65%的人口從平臺(tái)和聚合網(wǎng)站獲得新聞。

Sadly, the fact that Facebook, Google and Twitter now provide the world with most of its news has also coincided with a decline in trust in liberal democratic governments. The filter bubbles created by these platforms push people towards far right or left extremist content, and that has the tendency to erode their belief in existing institutions.

遺憾的是，在現(xiàn)在全世界大多數(shù)新聞?dòng)蒄acebook、谷歌和Twitter提供的同時(shí)，人們對(duì)自由民主政府的信任度在下降。由這些平臺(tái)產(chǎn)生的過濾氣泡(filter bubble)把人們推向極右或極左的極端內(nèi)容，這就產(chǎn)生了一種削弱他們對(duì)現(xiàn)有機(jī)構(gòu)信任度的趨勢。

That is one reason it is so odd to me that the latest attempt by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to “fix” the company’s problems involves pushing people away from news sites and towards friends and family. Unfortunately, the people we are closest to are the very ones who create our filter bubbles. The bubbles are quite profitable for the platforms, which can use them to funnel opaque political and corporate advertising to individuals, messaging that usually plays to their own prejudices.

這就是我對(duì)以下現(xiàn)象感覺如此奇怪的原因之一：Facebook首席執(zhí)行官馬克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)試圖“解決”該公司問題的最新嘗試，涉及讓人們遠(yuǎn)離新聞網(wǎng)站，貼近朋友和家人。不幸的是，我們最親近的人正是那些為我們制造了過濾氣泡的人。這些氣泡對(duì)平臺(tái)來說是相當(dāng)有利可圖的，平臺(tái)可以利用氣泡將不透明的政治和企業(yè)廣告推送給個(gè)人，而這些廣告通常會(huì)迎合他們自己的偏見。

It’s very often stuff that would not look good in the light of day, which is one of the reasons that the Big Tech companies are lobbying against moves such as the Honest Ads Act, which would make them put their political advertising out into the clear light of day, like any other media company.

這些往往正是在日光下看起來不好的東西，這是大型科技公司正在游說反對(duì)《誠實(shí)廣告法案》(Honest Ads Act)等措施的原因之一。該法案將迫使它們像任何其他媒體公司一樣，把它們的政治廣告放到大庭廣眾之下。

They also continue to lobby against the repeal of loopholes such as CDA230, which would kill the special and outdated subsidies Big Tech enjoyed as a young and nascent industry in the mid-1990s, rather than the largest economic and political force in the world. Perhaps, most importantly, they are not listening to their toughest critics.

大型科技公司還在繼續(xù)游說反對(duì)堵上《通信規(guī)范法》第230條(CDA230)等漏洞，堵上這一漏洞將終止它們在1990年代中期作為一個(gè)年輕而新生的行業(yè)、而不是世界上最大的經(jīng)濟(jì)和政治力量所享有的特殊和過時(shí)的補(bǔ)貼?；蛟S，最重要的是，它們沒有聽取最嚴(yán)厲的批評(píng)者的意見。

When you have a problem, and you are truly serious about solving it, you reach out to the people who are toughest on you. My own experience with Big Tech (which in recent months has been mainly with policy and PR people; since I started writing critical pieces, the top executives have not been available for comment) is that there is still a sense that people who criticise “just don’t get it”.

當(dāng)你有問題并且很認(rèn)真地想解決它的時(shí)候，你會(huì)接觸那些最嚴(yán)厲批評(píng)你的人。我自己與大型科技公司打交道的經(jīng)歷表明，他們?nèi)匀挥X得批評(píng)者“根本不懂行”(我最近幾個(gè)月主要是與政策和公關(guān)人員打交道;自從我開始撰寫批評(píng)性文章以來，一直聯(lián)系不到高管們發(fā)表評(píng)論)。

Rather, what you are seeing is a classic corporate PR playbook of deflection and delay. Facebook is making announcements around things such as workforce training in Europe, which is certainly a worthy project, but it does not address any of the big picture issues with their toxic business model. A real shift would be opening up their algorithmic black boxes and creating a site where the public can see and search the kinds of advertising that goes out to users. It might also create clearer opt-out clauses on data tracking and have a statute of limitations on data usage.

相反，你所看到的是一種典型的企業(yè)公關(guān)套路，其特點(diǎn)是轉(zhuǎn)移視線和拖延。Facebook在歐洲的勞動(dòng)力培訓(xùn)等方面做了一些宣傳，這當(dāng)然是一個(gè)值得做的項(xiàng)目，但它并沒有解決任何與它們的有害商業(yè)模式有關(guān)的大局問題。一個(gè)真正的轉(zhuǎn)變應(yīng)該是開放他們的算法黑盒，并創(chuàng)建一個(gè)公眾可以查看和搜索發(fā)給他們的廣告類型的網(wǎng)站。它也許還可以在數(shù)據(jù)跟蹤方面創(chuàng)建更清晰的“選擇退出”條款，并出臺(tái)一項(xiàng)限制數(shù)據(jù)使用的規(guī)定。

None of this is happening. At Davos, tech executives will continue trying to humanise artificial intelligence, talk about their efforts around education and retraining and generally push business as usual. But it is already clear that politicians on both sides of the aisle are starting to shape an economic agenda that includes, quite rightly, a focus on the monopoly power of the largest companies, most notably the Fangs.

這一切都沒有發(fā)生。在達(dá)沃斯，科技公司高管們將繼續(xù)努力讓人工智能(AI)變得人性化，談?wù)撍麄冊诮逃驮倥嘤?xùn)方面的努力，并會(huì)像往常一樣推銷業(yè)務(wù)。但已很清楚的是，美國兩黨政客們正開始制定一項(xiàng)經(jīng)濟(jì)議程，其中——相當(dāng)正確地——包括對(duì)大公司、最主要是FANG的壟斷權(quán)力的關(guān)注。

In December, Keith Ellison, the co-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, introduced new legislation, the 21st Century Competition Commission Act, to address corporate monopoly power and its anti-competitive effects. Several state Democratic congressional candidates (Austin Frerick in Iowa, Lillian Salerno in Texas) are running on anti-Big Tech tickets, as are Republicans such as Josh Hawley, a US Senate candidate who, as Missouri’s attorney-general, launched an antitrust investigation into Google. Politicians such as Democrat Elizabeth Warren are ramping up the rhetoric on this topic, too.

去年12月，美國民主黨全國委員會(huì)(DNC)聯(lián)合主席凱斯•埃利森(Keith Ellison)引入了新的立法——《21世紀(jì)競爭委員會(huì)法案》(21st Century Competition Commission Act)，以應(yīng)對(duì)企業(yè)壟斷及其反競爭效應(yīng)。幾個(gè)州的民主黨國會(huì)議員候選人(愛荷華州的奧斯丁•弗雷里克(Austin Frerick)和德克薩斯州的莉蓮•薩萊諾(Lillian Salerno))都在以反大型科技公司的綱領(lǐng)參選，參議員候選人喬希•霍利(Josh Hawley)等共和黨人也是如此。作為密蘇里州的檢察長，霍利發(fā)起了對(duì)谷歌的反壟斷調(diào)查。民主黨人伊麗莎白•沃倫(Elizabeth Warren)等政客也在這個(gè)話題上發(fā)表更多言論。

No wonder. Last year, when the polling company Gallup asked respondents if they were satisfied with the “size and influence of major corporations”, 58 per cent said no.

這并不奇怪。去年，當(dāng)民意調(diào)查公司蓋洛普(Gallup)詢問受訪者是否對(duì)“大公司的規(guī)模和影響力”感到滿意時(shí)，58%的受訪者表示不滿意。

The key political and economic issue, not just in Davos, but in the US midterm elections and even the presidential elections in 2020, may be the power of Big Tech.

關(guān)鍵的政治與經(jīng)濟(jì)問題——不僅在達(dá)沃斯，也在美國中期選舉、乃至2020年的總統(tǒng)選舉中——也許是大型科技公司的權(quán)力。