Facebook: Epic Fail
脸书劫数
The social-media giant faces a reputational crisis. Here is how it and the industry should respond
这家社交媒体巨头面临信誉危机。它和它所在的行业当以如下策略应对
Last year the idea took hold that Mark Zuckerberg might run for president in 2020 and seek to lead the world’s most powerful country. Today, Facebook’s founder is fighting to show that he is capable of leading the world’s eighth-biggest listed company or that any of its 2.1bn users should trust it.
去年，人们已经普遍认为马克·扎克伯格可能会在2020年竞选总统，争取领导世界上最强大的国家。而现在，这位Facebook的创始人需要竭力证明自己有能力领导全球第八大上市公司，或者这家公司应该被它的21亿用户信任。
News that Cambridge Analytica (CA), a firm linked to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, got data on 50m Facebook users in dubious, possibly illegal, ways has lit a firestorm. Mr Zuckerberg took five days to reply and, when he did, he conceded that Facebook had let its users down in the past but seemed not to have grasped that its business faces a wider crisis of confidence. After months of talk about propaganda and fake news, politicians in Europe and, increasingly, America see Facebook as out of control and in denial. Congress wants him to testify. Expect a roasting.
据报道，剑桥分析（Cambridge Analytica）这家与特朗普2016年竞选活动有关联的公司以可疑且可能是非法的方式获得了5000万Facebook用户的数据。消息爆出后激起轩然大波。扎克伯格在五天后才做出回应，他承认Facebook过去曾让用户失望，但他似乎没有意识到这家社交媒体的业务面临更广泛的信任危机。经过几个月有关政治造势和假新闻的讨论，欧洲的政客以及越来越多的美国政客都认为Facebook已经失控且还否认事实。国会希望扎克伯格作证。一场严苛的盘问为时不远了。
Since the news, spooked investors have wiped 9% off Facebook’s shares. Consumers are belatedly waking up to the dangers of handing over data to tech giants that are run like black boxes. Already, according to the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank, a majority of Americans say they distrust social-media firms. Mr Zuckerberg and his industry need to change, fast.
消息传出后，投资者惊恐不已，Facebook的股价已经蒸发掉9%。后知后觉的消费者终于意识到，把数据交给如黑箱般运作的科技巨头危险重重。智库皮尤研究中心称，大多数美国人已经表示不再信任社交媒体公司。扎克伯格和社交媒体行业需要改变，且刻不容缓。
The addiction game
上瘾游戏
Facebook’s business relies on three elements: keeping users glued to their screens, collecting data about their behaviour and convincing advertisers to pay billions of dollars to reach them with targeted ads. The firm has an incentive to promote material that grabs attention and to sell ads to anyone. Its culture melds a ruthless pursuit of profit with a Panglossian and narcissistic belief in its own virtue. Mr Zuckerberg controls the firm’s voting rights. Clearly, he gets too little criticism.
Facebook的业务依赖三大要素：让用户眼不离屏；收集其行为数据；说服广告主支付数十亿美元向用户投放定向广告。该公司有动力“做大”吸睛的内容以及向任何人出售广告。它的文化中融合了对利润的无情追求和对自身美德的过分乐观与自恋。扎克伯格控制着公司的投票权。显然，他受到的批评太少了。
In the latest fiasco, it emerged that in 2013 an academic in Britain built a questionnaire app for Facebook users, which 270,000 people answered. They in turn had 50m Facebook friends. Data on all these people then ended up with CA. (Full disclosure: The Economist once used CA for a market-research project.) Facebook says that it could not happen again and that the academic and CA broke its rules; both deny doing anything wrong. Regulators in Europe and America are investigating. Facebook knew of the problem in 2015, but it did not alert individual users. Although nobody knows how much CA benefited Mr Trump’s campaign, the fuss has been amplified by the left’s disbelief that he could have won the election fairly.
最近这次惨败中爆出的事件是这样的：英国一位学者在2013年编写了一款面向Facebook用户的问卷应用，27万人参与作答，而他们共有5000万Facebook好友。最终，所有这些人的数据都落到了剑桥分析的手中（完全披露：《经济学人》曾雇用剑桥分析做一项市场调研）。Facebook表示这种情况不会再发生，还声称该学者和剑桥分析违反了它的规定，但那两方都否认自己有错。欧洲和美国的监管机构正在调查。Facebook在2015年就知道了这个问题，但并没有提醒个人用户。虽然没人知道剑桥分析到底帮了特朗普竞选活动多大的忙，但左翼人士怀疑他并非公平胜出，这就使得问题变大了。
But that does not give Facebook a defence. The episode fits an established pattern of sloppiness towards privacy, tolerance of inaccuracy and reluctance to admit mistakes. In early 2017 Mr Zuckerberg dismissed the idea that fake news had influenced the election as “pretty crazy”. In September Facebook said Kremlin-linked firms had spent a mere $100,000 to buy 3,000 adverts on its platform, failing at first to mention that 150m users had seen free posts by Russian operatives. It has also repeatedly misled advertisers about its user statistics.
但这并不能为Facebook提供无罪辩护。此次事件符合它的一套固有模式：对隐私的草率、对不准确的容忍、不愿承认错误。去年年初，扎克伯格驳斥假新闻影响选举的说法“非常疯狂”。9月，Facebook表示，与克里姆林宫有关联的公司只花了10万美元在其平台上购买了3000条广告，但没有第一时间说明有1.5亿用户看过俄罗斯特工发布的免费帖子。它还多次在用户统计数据方面误导广告主。
Facebook is not about to be banned or put out of business, but the chances of a regulatory backlash are growing. Europe is inflicting punishment by a thousand cuts, from digital taxes to antitrust cases. And distrustful users are switching off. The American customer base of Facebook’s core social network has stagnated since June 2017. Its share of America’s digital advertising market is forecast to dip this year for the first time. The network effect that made Facebook ever more attractive to new members as it grew could work in reverse if it starts to shrink. Facebook is worth $493bn, but only has $14bn of physical assets. Its value is intangible – and, potentially, ephemeral.
Facebook尚不会被禁止或关闭，但监管部门强烈反弹的可能性在加大。从数字税到反垄断案件，欧洲正在对它“千刀万剐”。心存疑虑的用户已开始弃之不用。自去年6月以来，Facebook核心社交网络的美国用户数量已经停滞不前。而据预测，该网站占美国数字广告市场的份额今年将首次下降。一旦它开始萎缩，在它扩张时令它对新用户的吸引力不断加大的网络效应就开始反向作用。Facebook的市值为4930亿美元，但仅拥有140亿美元的实物资产。它的价值是无形的——因此也有可能转瞬即逝。
If Mr Zuckerberg wants to do right by the public and his firm, he must rebuild trust. So far he has promised to audit some apps, restrict developers’ access to data still further, and help people control which apps have access to their data.
如果扎克伯格想做对公众和自己的公司正确的事，他必须重建信任。他已经承诺审查一些应用，进一步限制开发者访问数据，并帮助人们控制哪些应用可以访问他们的数据。
That doesn’t go nearly far enough. Facebook needs a full, independent examination of its approach to content, privacy and data, including its role in the 2016 election and the Brexit referendum. This should be made public. Each year Facebook should publish a report on its conduct that sets out everything from the prevalence of fake news to privacy breaches.
但这还远远不够。Facebook需要对其处理内容、隐私和数据的方式展开全面、独立的审查，包括它在2016年大选和英国退欧公投中所起的作用。这应该被公之于众。每年Facebook都应该发布一份报告，陈述公司在各类事件中的行为表现，从假新闻流行到隐私侵犯等。
Next, Facebook and other tech firms need to open up to outsiders, safely and methodically. They should create an industry ombudsman – call it the Data Rights Board. Part of its job would be to set and enforce the rules by which accredited independent researchers look inside platforms without threatening users’ privacy. Software is being developed with this in mind. The likes of Facebook raise big questions. How does micro-targeting skew political campaigns? What biases infect facial-recognition algorithms? Better they be answered with evidence instead of outrage.
然后，Facebook和其他科技公司需要安全而讲求方法地向外界开放。它们应该设立一个行业监察机构——我们可以称之为数据权利委员会。它的一部分工作是制定并执行规则，确保经认证的独立研究人员在调研这些平台时不威胁到用户的隐私。顾及这一点的软件正在研发中。Facebook这类公司引发了一些重大的议题。微目标定位如何影响了政治竞选的公正性？什么偏见会影响面部识别算法？这些问题最好是用证据而不是怒火来回答。
The board or something like it could also act as a referee for complaints, and police voluntary data-protection protocols. Facebook, for example, is planning to comply worldwide with some of the measures contained in a new European law, called the General Data Protection Regulation. Among other things, this will give users more power to opt out of being tracked online and to stop their information being shared with third parties. Adherence to such rules needs to be closely monitored.
这样一个委员会或类似的机构也可以充当投诉的仲裁方，并监督那些自愿实施的数据保护协议。例如，Facebook正计划在全球范围内遵循一项名为《通用数据保护条例》（General Data Protection Regulation）的欧洲新法律所包含的一些措施。这会有各种好处，其一是用户会获得更多的权力，选择不被在线追踪，或不与第三方共享自己的信息。对这些法规的遵循情况需要密切监测。
Thumbs down
行不通
Tech has experience of acting collectively to solve problems. Standards on hardware and software, and the naming of internet domains, are agreed on jointly. Facebook’s rivals may be wary but, if the industry does not come up with a joint solution, a government clampdown will become inevitable.
科技行业有集体行动解决问题的经验。软硬件的标准、互联网域名的命名，都是经各方一致同意而设定的。Facebook的竞争对手可能会有所顾虑，但如果该行业不拿出一个联合解决方案，一场来自政府的打压将无可避免。
Facebook seems to think it only needs to tweak its approach. In fact it, and other firms that hoover up consumer data, should assume that their entire business model is at risk. As users become better informed, the alchemy of taking their data without paying and manipulating them for profit may die. Firms may need to compensate people for their data or let them pay to use platforms ad-free. Profits won’t come as easily, but the alternative is stark. If Facebook ends up as a regulated utility with its returns on capital capped, its earnings may drop by 80%. How would you like that, Mr Zuckerberg?
Facebook似乎认为自己只需微调方式方法。而实际上，它和其他大量获取消费者数据的公司应该假定自己的整个商业模式都已经面临危险。如今用户已经更加了解这些模式，免费获取他们的数据并操控数据来获利的炼金术可能会失灵。公司可能需要就数据补偿用户，或者让用户付费使用无广告平台。利润来得不会再那么容易，但若不这么做，后果不堪设想。如果Facebook最终成为一个受监管的公用事业公司，资本回报封顶，那么其收益可能会减少80%。你觉得怎么样呢，小扎同学？
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