原标题：|考研英语同源阅读|巨星陨落 脸书面临信誉危机（上)
epic fail
巨星陨落
the social-media
giant faces a reputational crisis
社交媒体巨头脸书面临信誉危机
here is how it and the industry should respond
且看其如何招架
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.
去年有传言称：马克·扎克伯格可能会参加2020年总统大选，并有望领导美国这个世界上最强大的国家。
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.
今天，脸书的这位创始人正在努力证明自己有领导全球第八大上市公司的实力，努力让21亿用户相信脸书这一平台。
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.
与特朗普总统2016年总统大选有牵连的剑桥分析公司涉嫌非法获取脸书5000万用户信息的消息不胫而走，掀起了轩然大波。
mr zuck
erberg 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.
扎克伯格先生花了五天时间思索对策，他回应时承认脸书过去让用户失望了，但他似乎并没意识到脸书或将面临更大的信任危机。
after months of talk about propaganda and fake news, politicians in europe and, increasingly, america see facebook as out of control and in denial.
相关宣传和假新闻事件谈论了数月之久，欧洲政客以及越来越的美国政客认为脸书已经失控而且还不肯接受这一现实。
congress wants him to testify. expect a roasting.
国会要求扎克伯格（就数据泄露丑闻）作证，期望其可以走出困境。
since the news, spooked investors have wiped 9% off facebook’s shares.
“泄密门”一出，吓得投资商们抛出了9%的脸书股份。
consumers are belatedlywaking up to the dangers of handing over data to tech giants that are run like black boxes.
用户们终于意识到自己把信息授权给像黑匣子一样运行的科技巨头的危险性。
already,according to the pew research centre, a think-tank, a majority of americans say they distrust social-media firms.
智库皮尤研究中心表示，大多数美国人表示不信任社交媒体公司。
mr zuckerberg and his industry need to change, fast.
扎克伯格和他的行业（社交媒体行业）需要快速变革。
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.
脸书的业务主要取决于三个要素：让用户沉迷于社交软件，收集用户行为数据，让广告商乐意支付数十亿美元向用户推送有针对性的广告。
the firm has an incentive to promote material that grabs attention and to sell ads to anyone.
脸书致力于推广能抓人眼球的事物，然后将广告推送给所有人。
its culture melds a ruthless pursuit of profit with a panglossian and narcissistic belief in its own virtue.
其企业文化融合了对利益的无限追求以及对自自身优点的盲目乐观。
mr zuckerberg controls the firm’s voting rights.
扎克伯格手握脸书的投票权。
clearly, he gets too little criticism.
很明显，他听到的反对意见少之又少。
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.
此次“泄密门”的源头是英国学者2013年推出的一款问卷调查应用软件（向脸书用户提供个性分析测试），当时共27万脸书用户下载作答。
they in turn had 50m facebook friends.
而这些用户在脸书上一共有5000万位好友。
data on all these people then ended up with ca.
最后这些用户的数据就落入了ca公司的手中。
facebook says that it could not happen again and that the academic and ca broke its rules; both deny doing anything wrong.
脸书称不会再有“泄密门”，这位学者和ca公司也违反来规则且拒不认错。
regulators in europe and america are investigating.
欧美监管机构正在着手调查。
facebook knew of the problem in 2015, but it did not alert individual users.
脸书在2015年就知道有这个问题，但并没有提醒用户。
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.
尽管特朗普竞选中ca获益多少还不曾得知，但左派不相信特朗普是公平赢得了选举，质疑声放大了这一事件。
but that does not give facebook a defence.
但这并不能为脸书辩护。
theepisodefits an establishedpattern of sloppiness towards privacy, tolerance of inaccuracy and reluctance to admit mistakes.
此次事故映射出一套固有模式：隐私问题处理草率、（广告用途）误差容忍度高以及拒绝认错。
in early 2017 mr zuckerberg dismissed the idea that fake news had influenced the election as “pretty crazy”.
2017年初，扎克伯格认为“假新闻能影响大选”这一观点“太疯狂”。
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.
九月份脸书表示俄罗斯机构仅花了10万美元就在脸书上购买了3000个广告，一开始也没有提到1.5亿用户已经看过俄罗斯机构发布的广告。
it has also repeatedly misled advertisers about its user statistics.
它一再重蹈覆辙让广告商将用户数据用于不法行当。
(红色标注词为考研重点词汇)
考研重点词汇：
belatedly [bi'leitidli] adv. 延迟地；延续地
incentive [?n'sent?v] n. 动机；刺激 adj. 激励的；刺激的
episode ['ep?s??d] n. 插曲；一段情节；插话；有趣的事件
establish [?'st?bl??; e-] vi. 植物定植 vt. 建立；创办；安置
dismiss [d?s'm?s] vt. 解散；解雇；开除；让...离开；不予理会、不予考虑 vi. 解散
小编寄语：人与人之间最重要的是信任，更何况一个企业面对客户呢？
来源：每日双语经济学人
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