誰來約束大型科技公司的壟斷權力

The World Economic Forum in Davos has just opened. As the forum of movers and shakers has become bigger — some would say too big — over the years, it has turned into more of a dealmaking venue than a thought leadership salon. But Davos is still the greatest place in the world to put a finger to the wind and see what the key economic and political issues of the year will be. I’m betting that top of the list will be Big Tech’s attempt to rebrand itself.

達沃斯世界經濟論壇(WEF)已經落下帷幕。隨着這一推動者和塑造者的論壇逐年變大（有些人會說太大了），它已經變成了一個交易場所，而不是一個思想領袖沙龍。但是，達沃斯仍是這個世界上觀望風向、看看今年的關鍵經濟和政治問題將是什麼的最佳場所。我敢打賭，排在首位的問題將是大型科技公司重塑自我的嘗試。

The Fangs — Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google — are having a crisis that encompasses the cognitive, the political and the economic. Activists, regulators and even some tech executives themselves are calling for an investigation into the addictive nature of smartphones and social media.

FANG——Facebook、亞馬遜(Amazon)、Netflix和谷歌(Google)的統稱——正在經歷一場引起學界、政界和經濟界討論的危機。活動人士、監管機構、甚至一些科技公司高管本人都在呼籲對智能手機和社交媒體的成癮特性進行調查。

Just last week, Congress once again grilled Facebook, Google and Twitter about their management of extremist content. The bottom line They have no clear answers about how they are going to prevent their platforms from being used for things such as Russian election meddling, or by governments in places such as Myanmar to prepare their populations for death squads and genocide.

就在最近，美國國會再次詢問了Facebook、谷歌和Twitter對極端主義內容的管理情況。底線在哪裏？對於如何防止它們的平臺被用於諸如俄羅斯干預選舉的事情，或是被緬甸等地的政府用來讓民衆準備好參加敢死隊和實行種族滅絕，這些公司沒有給出明確的答案。

Indeed, there is evidence linking the rise of platform technologies with declining trust in liberal democracy itself. Fully 65 per cent of the population gets its news from platforms and aggregator sites, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer survey of 28 countries.

的確，有證據表明，平臺技術的興起與人們對自由民主本身的信任度下降有關。根據對28個國家進行的《愛德曼信任度調查報告》(Edelman Trust Barometer)，整整65%的人口從平臺和聚合網站獲得新聞。

Sadly, the fact that Facebook, Google and Twitter now provide the world with most of its news has also coincided with a decline in trust in liberal democratic governments. The filter bubbles created by these platforms push people towards far right or left extremist content, and that has the tendency to erode their belief in existing institutions.

遺憾的是，在現在全世界大多數新聞由Facebook、谷歌和Twitter提供的同時，人們對自由民主政府的信任度在下降。由這些平臺產生的過濾氣泡(filter bubble)把人們推向極右或極左的極端內容，這就產生了一種削弱他們對現有機構信任度的趨勢。

That is one reason it is so odd to me that the latest attempt by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to “fix” the company’s problems involves pushing people away from news sites and towards friends and family. Unfortunately, the people we are closest to are the very ones who create our filter bubbles. The bubbles are quite profitable for the platforms, which can use them to funnel opaque political and corporate advertising to individuals, messaging that usually plays to their own prejudices.

這就是我對以下現象感覺如此奇怪的原因之一：Facebook首席執行官馬克扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)試圖“解決”該公司問題的最新嘗試，涉及讓人們遠離新聞網站，貼近朋友和家人。不幸的是，我們最親近的人正是那些爲我們製造了過濾氣泡的人。這些氣泡對平臺來說是相當有利可圖的，平臺可以利用氣泡將不透明的政治和企業廣告推送給個人，而這些廣告通常會迎合他們自己的偏見。

It’s very often stuff that would not look good in the light of day, which is one of the reasons that the Big Tech companies are lobbying against moves such as the Honest Ads Act, which would make them put their political advertising out into the clear light of day, like any other media company.

這些往往正是在日光下看起來不好的東西，這是大型科技公司正在遊說反對《誠實廣告法案》(Honest Ads Act)等措施的原因之一。該法案將迫使它們像任何其他媒體公司一樣，把它們的政治廣告放到大庭廣衆之下。

They also continue to lobby against the repeal of loopholes such as CDA230, which would kill the special and outdated subsidies Big Tech enjoyed as a young and nascent industry in the mid-1990s, rather than the largest economic and political force in the world. Perhaps, most importantly, they are not listening to their toughest critics.

大型科技公司還在繼續遊說反對堵上《通信規範法》第230條(CDA230)等漏洞，堵上這一漏洞將終止它們在1990年代中期作爲一個年輕而新生的行業、而不是世界上最大的經濟和政治力量所享有的特殊和過時的補貼。或許，最重要的是，它們沒有聽取最嚴厲的批評者的意見。

When you have a problem, and you are truly serious about solving it, you reach out to the people who are toughest on you. My own experience with Big Tech (which in recent months has been mainly with policy and PR people; since I started writing critical pieces, the top executives have not been available for comment) is that there is still a sense that people who criticise “just don’t get it”.

當你有問題並且很認真地想解決它的時候，你會接觸那些最嚴厲批評你的人。我自己與大型科技公司打交道的經歷表明，他們仍然覺得批評者“根本不懂行”（我最近幾個月主要是與政策和公關人員打交道；自從我開始撰寫批評性文章以來，一直聯繫不到高管們發表評論）。

Rather, what you are seeing is a classic corporate PR playbook of deflection and delay. Facebook is making announcements around things such as workforce training in Europe, which is certainly a worthy project, but it does not address any of the big picture issues with their toxic business model. A real shift would be opening up their algorithmic black boxes and creating a site where the public can see and search the kinds of advertising that goes out to users. It might also create clearer opt-out clauses on data tracking and have a statute of limitations on data usage.

相反，你所看到的是一種典型的企業公關套路，其特點是轉移視線和拖延。Facebook在歐洲的勞動力培訓等方面做了一些宣傳，這當然是一個值得做的項目，但它並沒有解決任何與它們的有害商業模式有關的大局問題。一個真正的轉變應該是開放他們的算法黑盒，並創建一個公衆可以查看和搜索發給他們的廣告類型的網站。它也許還可以在數據跟蹤方面創建更清晰的“選擇退出”條款，並出臺一項限制數據使用的規定。

None of this is happening. At Davos, tech executives will continue trying to humanise artificial intelligence, talk about their efforts around education and retraining and generally push business as usual. But it is already clear that politicians on both sides of the aisle are starting to shape an economic agenda that includes, quite rightly, a focus on the monopoly power of the largest companies, most notably the Fangs.

這一切都沒有發生。在達沃斯，科技公司高管們將繼續努力讓人工智能(AI)變得人性化，談論他們在教育和再培訓方面的努力，並會像往常一樣推銷業務。但已很清楚的是，美國兩黨政客們正開始制定一項經濟議程，其中——相當正確地——包括對大公司、最主要是FANG的壟斷權力的關注。

In December, Keith Ellison, the co-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, introduced new legislation, the 21st Century Competition Commission Act, to address corporate monopoly power and its anti-competitive effects. Several state Democratic congressional candidates (Austin Frerick in Iowa, Lillian Salerno in Texas) are running on anti-Big Tech tickets, as are Republicans such as Josh Hawley, a US Senate candidate who, as Missouri’s attorney-general, launched an antitrust investigation into Google. Politicians such as Democrat Elizabeth Warren are ramping up the rhetoric on this topic, too.

去年12月，美國民主黨全國委員會(DNC)聯合主席凱斯埃利森(Keith Ellison)引入了新的立法——《21世紀競爭委員會法案》(21st Century Competition Commission Act)，以應對企業壟斷及其反競爭效應。幾個州的民主黨國會議員候選人（愛荷華州的奧斯丁弗雷裏克(Austin Frerick)和德克薩斯州的莉蓮薩萊諾(Lillian Salerno)）都在以反大型科技公司的綱領參選，參議員候選人喬希霍利(Josh Hawley)等共和黨人也是如此。作爲密蘇里州的檢察長，霍利發起了對谷歌的反壟斷調查。民主黨人伊麗莎白沃倫(Elizabeth Warren)等政客也在這個話題上發表更多言論。

No wonder. Last year, when the polling company Gallup asked respondents if they were satisfied with the “size and influence of major corporations”, 58 per cent said no.

這並不奇怪。去年，當民意調查公司蓋洛普(Gallup)詢問受訪者是否對“大公司的規模和影響力”感到滿意時，58%的受訪者表示不滿意。

The key political and economic issue, not just in Davos, but in the US midterm elections and even the presidential elections in 2020, may be the power of Big Tech.

關鍵的政治與經濟問題——不僅在達沃斯，也在美國中期選舉、乃至2020年的總統選舉中——也許是大型科技公司的權力。