Elon Musk’s $44bn education on free speech

He has had a crash course in the trade-offs in protecting free expression

他在保護言論自由的權(quán)衡方面有一個速成課程

Elon musk’s two months running Twitter has been an unhappy experiment. The social network’s 250m users have endured a wearying saga in which Mr Musk is the central character. Advertisers have fled. Twitter, which lost 4bn a year, by one estimate. The damage has spread to Tesla, Mr Musk’s carmaker, part of the reason it has lost half a trillion dollars in market value since early September, costing Mr Musk the title of the world’s richest man.

埃隆-馬斯克(Elon musk)經(jīng)營Twitter的兩個月是一個不愉快的試驗。這個社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)的2.5億用戶經(jīng)歷了一場令人厭倦的事件，而馬斯克先生是其中的核心人物。廣告商已經(jīng)逃離了。推特在2021年損失了2.21億美元，根據(jù)一項估計，現(xiàn)在正處于一年損失40億美元的狀態(tài)。這種損害已經(jīng)蔓延到了馬斯克先生的汽車制造商特斯拉，這也是特斯拉自9月初以來市值損失5萬億美元的部分原因，使馬斯克先生失去了世界首富的稱號。

!! cost sb the title of sth，注意cost的小詞用法，使某人失去某某稱號

On December 19th it looked as if Mr Musk might throw in the towel, after Twitter users voted for him to step down as chief executive. It has been a costly adventure. But in one sense his turbulent stewardship of the social network has done the rest of the world a favour. In two short months Mr Musk has been through a public crash course in the principles of free speech, neatly demonstrating the trade-offs involved in protecting expression online.

12月19日，在推特用戶投票支持他卸任首席執(zhí)行官后，馬斯克先生看起來似乎可能會放棄了。這是一次代價高昂的冒險。但從某種意義上說，他對社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)的動蕩管理為世界其他國家?guī)砹撕锰帯Ｔ诙潭虄蓚€月內(nèi)，馬斯克先生經(jīng)歷了一次關(guān)于言論自由原則的公開速成課程，巧妙地展示了保護在線表達所涉及的權(quán)衡。

!! throw in the towel 認輸

From the outside, Twitter seemed simple to someone whose day job was building self-driving cars and space rockets. Mr Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist”, had grown concerned (with some justification) that Twitter had been captured by censorious left-wing scolds. Shortly after agreeing to buy the platform he explained his approach to moderation: “By ‘free speech’, I simply mean that which matches the law.”

在外界看來，對于一個日常工作是制造自動駕駛汽車和太空火箭的人來說，Twitter似乎很簡單。馬斯克先生自稱是 "言論自由的絕對主義者"，他越來越擔(dān)心（有一定的理由）那些審核的左翼批評者抓住推特不放。在同意購買該平臺后不久，他解釋了他的節(jié)制方法。"我所說的'言論自由'，只是指符合法律的言論"。

In practice he has found that the right to speech conflicts with other rights. One is safety. Last month Mr Musk said that his commitment to free speech meant he would not ban a Twitter account that tweeted the whereabouts of his private jet, even though he considered this a security risk. But on December 14th he changed his mind after a “stalker” bothered his son. After suspending the jet account, Twitter introduced rules outlawing the reporting of others’ real-time locations.

在實踐中，他發(fā)現(xiàn)言論自由權(quán)與其他權(quán)利相沖突。一個是安全。上個月，馬斯克先生說，他對言論自由的承諾意味著他不會禁止一個在推特上發(fā)布其私人飛機下落的推特賬戶，盡管他認為這是一種安全風(fēng)險。但在12月14日，在一個 "跟蹤者 "打擾了他的兒子之后，他改變了主意。在暫停該飛機賬戶后，推特推出了禁止報告他人實時位置的規(guī)則。

As well as limiting speech in the name of safety, Mr Musk has curtailed it to avoid the lesser sin of causing offence. In October the number of views of tweets that Twitter deems “hate speech” doubled, as users tested the limits of Mr Musk’s new regime. Rather than allow this legal-but-nasty content, Twitter cracked down. In November hateful tweets recorded one-third fewer views than before the takeover. Earlier this month Twitter suspended the account of Ye, a rapper formerly known as Kanye West, after he posted a picture of a swastika within a Star of David—an image that, however grotesque, is nonetheless permitted by America’s laws.

除了以安全的名義限制言論外，馬斯克先生還縮減了言論，以避免引起冒犯這一較輕的罪過。10月份，被推特視為 "仇恨言論 "的推文的瀏覽量增加了一倍，因為用戶測試了馬斯克先生的新制度的極限。推特沒有允許這種合法但令人討厭的內(nèi)容，而是進行了打擊。11月，仇恨性推文的瀏覽量比接管前減少了三分之一。本月早些時候，Twitter暫停了原名為Kanye West的說唱歌手Ye的賬戶，因為他發(fā)布了一張大衛(wèi)之星中的納粹標志圖片--這種圖片雖然怪異，但仍為美國法律所允許。

!! cutail: to stop something before it is finished, or to reduce or limit something. 制止；減少；縮減；限制

!! eg:to curtail your holiday/spending;縮短假期／縮減開支

Mr Musk even limited speech when it was bad for profits. After pranksters sent tweets aping brands like Pepsi (“Coke is better”) and Nestlé (“We steal your water and sell it back to you lol”), Twitter outlawed such behaviour to stop advertisers fleeing. Then, to stem an exodus of users, on December 18th Twitter said it would ban people from linking to rival social networks or posting their usernames. When questions were raised as to whether regulators would consider such a move anticompetitive, Mr Musk apologised and free speech was restored.

馬斯克先生甚至限制了對利潤不利的言論。在惡作劇者發(fā)出模仿百事可樂（"可口可樂更好"）和雀巢（"我們偷了你的水，然后再賣給你"）等品牌的推文后，Twitter禁止了這種行為，以阻止廣告商的逃離。然后，為了阻止用戶外流，12月18日，Twitter說它將禁止人們鏈接到競爭對手的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)或發(fā)布他們的用戶名。當(dāng)有人質(zhì)疑監(jiān)管機構(gòu)是否會認為此舉具有反競爭性時，馬斯克先生表示道歉，言論自由得以恢復(fù)。

!! Stem an exodus 遏止外流

!! Stem : a central part of something from which other parts can develop or grow, or which forms a support

All this holds two lessons for whoever follows Mr Musk as Twitter’s boss, should he leave. One is to keep content moderation at arm’s length. The person deciding whether a post is acceptable is compromised if they are also responsible for boosting engagement among users and spending by advertisers. Mark Zuckerberg (whose reputation has risen in light of Mr Musk’s pratfalls) realised this and outsourced Facebook’s biggest moderation headaches to an independent “oversight board” in 2020.

如果馬斯克離開，無論他是誰繼任Twitter的老板，這一切都有兩個教訓(xùn)。一個是保持內(nèi)容審核的距離。如果決定一個帖子是否可以接受的人還負責(zé)提高用戶的參與度和廣告商的支出，那么他們就會受到影響。馬克-扎克伯格（鑒于馬斯克先生的失誤，他的聲譽已經(jīng)上升）意識到了這一點，并在2020年將Facebook最頭疼的審核工作外包給了一個獨立的 "監(jiān)督委員會"。

The second lesson is that moderation has no clean solutions, even for “technokings” with strong views on free speech. Free expression is not a problem with a solution bounded by the laws of physics that can be hacked together if only enough coders pull an all-nighter. It is a dilemma requiring messy trade-offs that leave no one happy. In such a business, humility and transparency count for a lot.

第二個教訓(xùn)是，審核沒有干凈的解決方案，即使是對言論自由有強烈看法的 "技術(shù)派"。自由表達不是一個有物理定律約束的解決方案的問題，只要有足夠多的程序員通宵達旦地工作，才能把它破解。它是一個兩難的問題，需要混亂的權(quán)衡，沒有人會滿意。在這樣一個行業(yè)中，謙遜和透明是非常重要的。

!! pull an all-nighter 通宵工作

sth count for a lot 非常重要

These are novel concepts to some in Silicon Valley, who are impatient to tear up the established ways of doing things. But just as cryptocurrency enthusiasts have recently received a bracing lesson in the value of boring old financial prudence, so Mr Musk and his fellow free-speech enthusiasts are learning why free expression has caused many to scratch their heads over the centuries. Tech valuations have suffered a sharp correction in 2022. It has also been a chastening year for tech egos.

對于硅谷的一些人來說，這些是新的概念，他們迫不及待地要撕毀既定的做事方式。但是，就像加密貨幣愛好者最近接受了一堂關(guān)于無聊的老式金融謹慎的價值的課程一樣，馬斯克先生和他的同伴們正在學(xué)習(xí)為什么自由表達在幾個世紀以來讓許多人撓頭?？萍冀绲墓乐翟?022年遭遇了一次急劇修正。對于科技界的自尊心來說，這也是一個令人懊惱的年份。