文章来源：英文联播
In2006， a local pollster in Nepal was kidnapped by Maoist rebels while conducting opinion surveys on behalf of the American political strategist Stan Greenberg。 The Maoists， who had been waging a long-running insurgency against the government， did not issue their typical ransom demands—money or weapons in exchange for the prisoner。 No， they wanted the polling data that Greenberg’s team had collected， evidently to gauge the political climate in the country for themselves.The researchers eventually handed it over。
2006年，尼泊尔当地一名民意调查员代表美国政治策略家斯坦·格林伯格工作时被毛主义叛军绑架。长期同政府作对的毛主义者并未提出赎金要求，没有像通常那样要求拿钱或武器换囚犯。没有，他们想要的是格林伯格团队收集的数据，显然这可为他们评测该国的政治气候。研究人员最终交出了数据。
In his book “Alpha Dogs，” the British journalist James Harding cites this story as an example of how the business of political campaigning is being remade， across the globe， by a profusion of fine-grained data about voters and their habits。
英国记者詹姆斯·哈丁在《阿尔法狗》一书中用这个故事作为例证，说明在全球，大量有关选民和选民习惯的精确数据如何重塑政治活动。
Where the consultants of the nineteen-sixties and seventies obsessed over how to use television to beam ideal images of their clients into voters’ homes， today’s spinmasters hope that big data will allow them to manipulate voters’ deepest hopes and fears。 “What’s the currency of the world now？” one of Greenberg’s partners asks Harding。 “It’s not gold， it’s data。 It’s the information。”
六十年代和七十年代的咨询师迷恋于借助电视，将客户的完美形象送入选民家中，而今天的民意操作大师则希望大数据能让他们操纵选民内心最深处的希望和恐惧。“现在的世界货币是什么？”格林伯格团队人问哈丁。“不是黄金，是数据，是信息。”
Twelve years later， the fixation on data as the key to political persuasion has exploded into scandal。 For the past several days， the Internet has been enveloped in outrage over Facebook and Cambridge Analytica， the shadowy firm that supposedly helped Donald Trump win the White House。
十二年后，将数据作为政治劝说的钥匙，这引爆了一场丑闻。过去几天内，互联网笼罩着对脸书和剑桥分析的愤怒，后者是一家影子公司，曾帮助唐纳德·特朗普入主白宫。
As with the Maoist rebels， this appears to be a tale of data-lust gone bad。 In order to fulfill the promises that Cambridge Analytica made to its clients—it claimed to possess cutting-edge “psychographic profiles” that could judge voters’ personalities better than their own friends could—the company had to harvest huge amounts of information。
与毛主义叛军一样，这看起来是一个数据欲望变坏的故事。剑桥分析为了实现给客户的承诺，必须收割大量信息，公司宣称拥有领先的“心理塑像”，可以比选民的朋友更好的判断其个性。
It did this in an ethically suspect way， by contracting with Aleksandr Kogan， a psychologist at the University of Cambridge， who built an app that collected demographic data on tens of millions of Facebook users， largely without their knowledge。
公司用一种道德很可疑的方式完成任务：与剑桥大学心理学家亚历克山德·科根签订合同，科根开发了一个应用，收集脸书用户数千万人的个人信息，他们基本不知情。
“This was a scam—and a fraud，” Paul Grewal， Facebook’s deputy general counsel，told theTimesover the weekend。 Kogan hassaidthat he was assured by Cambridge Analytica that the data collection was “perfectly legal and within the limits of the terms of service。”
“这是一个骗局，属于欺诈。”脸书副总顾问保尔·格雷沃周末对《泰晤士报》说。科根曾说剑桥分析向他保证，数据手机“完全合法，并不违反服务条款规定”。
Despite Facebook’s performance of victimization， it has endured a good deal of blowback and blame。 Even before the story broke， Trump’s critics frequently railed at the company for contributing to his victory by failing to rein in fake news and Russian propaganda。
脸书装成受害者，可还是招致大量攻击和责难。即便在丑闻爆出前，特朗普的批评者就经常批评脸书未能制止假新闻和俄国宣传，从而帮助特朗普胜选。
To them， the Cambridge Analytica story was another example of Facebook’s inability， or unwillingness， to control its platform， which allowed bad actors to exploit people on behalf of authoritarian populism。
对他们而言，剑桥分析是脸书不能或不愿管控平台的另一个例证，让代表专制民粹主义的坏蛋对人们加以利用。
Democrats have demanded that Mark Zuckerberg， the C.E.O。 of Facebook， testify before Congress。 Antonio Tajani， the President of the European Parliament， wants to talk to him， too。 “Facebook needs to clarify before the representatives of five hundred million Europeans that personal data is not being used to manipulate democracy，” he said。
民主党人要求脸书首席执行官马克·扎克伯格去国会作证。欧洲议会主席安东尼奥·塔亚尼也要和他谈谈。“脸书要在5亿欧洲人的代表面前把事情说清楚，个人数据到底有没有被用来操纵民主。”他说。
Earlier this afternoon， after remaining conspicuously silent since Friday night， Zuckerberg pledged to restrict third-party access to Facebook data in an effort to win back user trust。 “We have a responsibility to protect your data， and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you，” hewrote on Facebook。
保持沉默多日的扎克伯格终于承诺，要限制第三方软件使用脸书数据，旨在赢得用户信任。“我们有责任保护你的数据，如果我们不能，我们就不配为你服务，”他在脸书上写道。
But，as some have noted， the furor over Cambridge Analytica is complicated by the fact that what the firm did wasn’t unique or all that new。 In 2012， Barack Obama’s reëlection campaign used a Facebook app to target users for outreach， giving supporters the option to share their friend lists with the campaign.These efforts， compared with those of Kogan and Cambridge Analytica， were relatively transparent， but users who never gave their consent had their information sucked up anyway。 （Facebook has sincechanged its policies。）
但有人注意到，剑桥分析的所作所为并不稀奇且由来已久，正因为如此对公司的怒火变得复杂起来。2012年，贝拉克·奥巴马连任竞选使用脸书应用推广，让支持者在大选中可以选择分享朋友列表。与科根和剑桥分析的做法相比，这还相对透明，但用户们还是在没有许可的情况下被拿走数据。（脸书后来改变了政策。）
As the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci has written， Facebook itself is a giant “surveillance machine”： its business model demands that it gather as much data about its users as possible， then allow advertisers to exploit the information through a system so complex and opaque that misuse is almost guaranteed。
社会学家泽伊内普·图菲克希写道，脸书本身就是一台巨大的“监控机器”：其业务模式要求获取用户尽可能多的数据，然后让广告商通过一个复杂且和不透明的系统利用这些数据，这几乎肯定是在滥用个人信息。
Just because something isn’t new doesn’t mean that it’s not outrageous。 It is unquestionably a bad thing that we carry out much of our online lives within a data-mining apparatus that sells influence to the highest bidder。
仅仅因为由来已久，并不意味着就不令人发指。毫无疑问，这是一件坏事，我们在一个数据挖掘机器里展开网络生活，而这些数据，出价高者得。
My initial reaction to the Cambridge Analytica scandal， though， was jaded； the feeling came from having seen how often， in the past， major public outcries about online privacy led nowhere。 In most cases， after the calls to delete Facebook die down and the sternly worded congressional letters stop being written， things pretty much go back to normal。
可我最初对剑桥分析丑闻的态度却不温不火，这种感觉的原因是，过去公众经常对在线隐私泄露感到愤怒，却都不了了之。多数情况下，呼吁删除脸书账号没了下文，措辞严厉的国会文书也写不下去，一切又回到往常。
Too often， privacy scandals boil down to a superficial fix to some specific breach or leak， without addressing how the entire system undermines the possibility of control。
隐私丑闻常常以对某些特定的侵犯或泄露行为进行表面的修正而告终，没有解决整个系统可能失控的问题。
Yet I eventually found reason to be genuinely repulsed by the story。 On Monday， the U.K。’s Channel 4published video footageof an undercover sting operation that it had conducted against Cambridge Analytica。 A man working for the channel， posing as a political operative from Sri Lanka， met with the firm’s representatives to discuss hiring them for a campaign。
可我最终发现有理由对这一丑闻感到恶心。周一，英国四频道播出一段到剑桥分析的暗访。一个电视台工作人员假扮斯里兰卡的政治活动家，他与公司代表讨论购买服务事宜。
On camera， over three meetings in various swanky hotels around London， C.A。’s employees offer an increasingly sordid account of their methods and capabilities。
镜头中在伦敦各个高级酒店的三次会晤中，剑桥分析的雇员对他们的方法和能力进行了越来越卑鄙的介绍。
The most unseemly revelation—and， in the context of the sting， the mostironic—comes when Alexander Nix， Cambridge Analytica’s C.E.O。， seems to offer to entrap the client’s political rivals with secretly videotaped bribes and rendezvous with sex workers。 （Nix was suspended on Tuesday。）
最不堪的、也是在暗访中最反讽的，要算剑桥分析的首席执行官亚历山大·尼克斯，他貌似提议秘密拍摄受贿和招妓视频来构陷客户的政治对手。（尼克斯上周二被解职。）
Like much of the best investigative journalism， the Channel 4 video gives viewers the queasy sense of a rock being overturned and sinister things being exposed to the light。 It is difficult to watch the video without becoming at least a little suspect of the entire business of democracy， given how large a role political consultants such as Nix play in it these days。
同许多最棒的调查记者一样，四频道的视频让受众感到不适，真相大白了，邪恶的东西被曝光。考虑到尼克斯这种政治顾问如今的所作所为，看了视频的人很难不对整个民主制度有些怀疑，至少如此。
Perhaps it is naïve to be scandalized by the cravenness of political consultants in the age of Paul Manafort， whose global democratic-perversion tour took him from buffing the image of the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos， in the nineteen-eighties， to running Trump’s campaign， or to fighting a fraud case for allegedly laundering his fees from the Ukrainian kleptocrat Viktor Yanukovych。
如果你对保尔·马纳福特时代政治顾问的怯懦感到震惊，兴许这有点天真。马纳福特展开了反民主全球巡游，他从八十年代就开始打造菲律宾独裁者费迪南德·马科斯的形象，参与了特朗普竞选，并涉嫌收受乌克兰维克多·亚努科维奇的贿赂。
But there was something shocking about the stark double identity of this posh “Old Etonian，” as all the British papers call Nix， who presented himself as a big-data wizard at marketing events but proposed basic gangsterism to clients in private。 And in the same spiffy suit。
但考虑到尼克斯闪耀的背景，这个“老伊顿人”——英国媒体这样称呼他——曾标榜自己是市场营销事件中的大数据奇才，却私下里建议客户为非作歹，真是让人瞠目结舌，况且还那么衣冠楚楚。
Watching the video makes you understand that the ethical difference between outright electoral corruption and psychographics is largely a matter of degree。 Both are shortcuts that warp the process into something small and dirty。 You don’t need to believe Cambridge Analytica’s own hype about the persuasive power of its methods to worry about how data-obsessed political marketing can undermine democracy。
看了视频，你就明白竞选腐败和心理塑像之间的伦理差别不过是程度不同罢了。两者都是将事情推向龌龊的快捷键。你无需相信剑桥分析对其方法如何能操纵民意的宣传，就应该担心大肆利用数据的政治营销会危害民主。
The model of the voter as a bundle of psychological vulnerabilities to be carefully exploited reduces people to mathematical inputs。 The big debates about values and policies that campaigns are supposed to facilitate and take part in are replaced by psychographically derived messages targeted to ever-tinier slivers of voters who are deemed by an algorithm to be persuadable。
拥有大量心理弱点的选民被精心利用，这种模式把人们贬低为数学输入。竞选本应推动和参与对价值和政策的讨论被心理塑像得来的信息所替代，针对的是人们可被算法劝说的更微妙的细节。
The organization of all of online life by data-mining operations makes this goal seem attainable， while an industry of data scientists and pollsters pitch it as inevitable。 Candidates， voters， and pundits， enthralled with the geek’s promise of omniscience， rush to buy in—at least until it’s used by someone they don’t like。
数据挖掘组织下的网络生活让这个目标看起来可以实现，且数据科学家和民意调查员认为这不可避免。候选人、选民和民意专家，被这种无所不能的极客承诺所引诱，争相买入，至少如果他们不喜欢的人要用，他们也必须用。
Cambridge Analytica is as much a symptom of democracy’s sickness as its cause。
剑桥分析是民主病的原因，也是民主病的症状。
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