GRE考试双语阅读模拟练习7

>>GRE阅读练习：GRE考试双语阅读模拟练习7

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Do social media threaten democracy?

社会媒体危害民主?

Facebook, Google and Twitter were supposed to improve politics. Something has gone very wrong.

脸书、谷歌和推特曾被认为会改善政治。有些事是大错特错了。

IN 1962 a British political scientist, Bernard Crick, published “In Defence of Politics”.

1962年，英国政治学家伯纳德·克里克出版了《政治之辩护》一书。

He argued that the art of political horse-trading, far from being shabby, lets people of different beliefs live together in a peaceful, thriving society.

他指出，政治上的讨价还价非但不龌龊卑鄙，反而是让不同信念的人共同生活在一个和平繁荣的社会中。

In a liberal democracy, nobody gets exactly what he wants, but everyone broadly has the freedom to lead the life he chooses.

在自由民主制度下，没有人能够想要什么就得到什么，但是，人人都广泛地拥有过自己选择的生活的自由。

However, without decent information, civility and conciliation, societies resolve their differences by resorting to coercion.

然而，没有了正经严肃的信息，没有了谦恭与和解，社会解决分歧靠的是诉诸于高压胁迫。

How Crick would have been dismayed by the falsehood and partisanship on display in this week's Senate committee hearings in Washington.

克里克该为本周在华盛顿参议院听证会上展示的虚假和党派偏见感到多么伤心啊。

Not long ago social media held out the promise of a more enlightened politics, as accurate information and effortless communication helped good people drive out corruption, bigotry and lies.

不久前，随着精准的信息和毫不费力的交流帮助好人挖出了腐败、赶走了偏执，击败了谎言，社会媒体展示了一个更加开明的政治的前景。

Yet Facebook acknowledged that before and after last year's American election, between January 2015 and August this year, 146m users may have seen Russian misinformation on its platform.

然而，脸书也已承认，在去年美国大选前后，即2015年1月到今年8月期间，1.46亿用户可能在其平台上看到了俄罗斯的不实信息。

Google's YouTube admitted to 1,108 Russian-linked videos and Twitter to 36,746 accounts.

谷歌的YouTube和推特也分别承认了1108个和36746个账户与俄罗斯有关的视频和账户。

Far from bringing enlightenment, social media have been spreading poison.

非但没有带来教化启迪，社会媒体反而一直在传播毒药。

Russia's trouble-making is only the start.

俄罗斯的拨弄是非仅仅是开始。

From South Africa to Spain, politics is getting uglier.

从南非到西班牙，政治正在变得越来越丑陋。

Part of the reason is that, by spreading untruth and outrage, corroding voters' judgment and aggravating partisanship, social media erode the conditions for the horse-trading that Crick thought fosters liberty.

部分原因在于，借着传播不实之事和无名之火，借着扰乱选民的判断和加剧党派分歧，社会媒体侵蚀的是克里克认为是养育自由的讨价还价的土壤。

The use of social media does not cause division so much as amplify it.

社会媒体的运用与其说是制造分歧，不如说是放大分歧。

The financial crisis of 2007-08 stoked popular anger at a wealthy elite that had left everyone else behind.

2007-08年的金融危机激起了对把其他人全都甩在身后的富人精英的公愤。

The culture wars have split voters by identity rather than class.

这场文化战争根据认同而不是阶层分裂了选民。

Nor are social media alone in their power to polarise—just look at cable TV and talk radio.

在它们造成两极分化的力量方面，社会媒体并非孤家寡人——只要看看的有线电视和电台脱口秀节目即可。

But, whereas Fox News is familiar, social media platforms are new and still poorly understood.

但是，福克斯新闻是人所熟悉的，而社会媒体平台却是全新的，仍然未被充分了解的。

And, because of how they work, they wield extraordinary influence.

同时，由于它们的运作方式，社会媒体握有格外的影响力。

They make their money by putting photos, personal posts, news stories and ads in front of you.

它们靠把照片、个人的帖子、各种新闻故事和广告推送到你面前来赚钱。

Because they can measure how you react, they know just how to get under your skin.

由于能够评估你如何反应，它们懂得怎么激怒你。

They collect data about you in order to have algorithms to determine what will catch your eye, in an “attention economy” that keeps users scrolling, clicking and sharing again and again and again.

它们收集关于你的数据，是为了在让用户一遍又一遍地翻页、点击并分享的“眼球经济中”，让算法去决定什么会抓住你的注意力。

Anyone setting out to shape opinion can produce dozens of ads, analyse them and see which is hardest to resist.

任何打算左右舆论的人都能生产几十广告，分析并从中发现哪一个最难让人拒绝。

The result is compelling: one study found that users in rich countries touch their phones 2,600 times a day.

结果触目惊心：一项研究发现，在富裕国家，用户每天触摸手机2600次。

It would be wonderful if such a system helped wisdom and truth rise to the surface.

如果这样一种体系有助于展示智慧披露真相，那就太好了。

But, whatever Keats said, truth is not beauty so much as it is hard work—especially when you disaGREe with it.

但是，无论济慈是怎么说的，真相更多的是艰苦的工作，而不是美好之物——尤其是在人们对真相有异议的时候。

Everyone who has scrolled through Facebook knows how, instead of imparting wisdom, the system dishes out compulsive stuff that tends to reinforce people's biases.

每一个浏览过脸书的人都很清楚，这种体系是如何推出往往是强化人们偏见的偏执性内容的，而不是传授智慧的。

This aggravates the politics of contempt that took hold, in the United States at least, in the 1990s.

这放大了在上世纪90年代至少是在美国已经成气候的蔑视政治。

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