z**********e
发帖数: 22064 | 1 http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20140722/c22tibettweet/dual/
It’s Another Perfect Day in Tibet!
By ANDREW JACOBS July 22, 2014
杰安迪 2014年07月22日 BEIJING — There’s a lot to admire about Tom Hugo,
and not just the washboard abs that are a glaring feature of his Twitter
account profile photo.
北京——Tom Hugo有很多东西值得赞赏，不仅仅是他Twitter账户头像里展示的令人艳
羡的搓衣板式腹肌。
For starters, Tom Hugo seems to be well-versed in Chinese, and he evidently
cares deeply about the Tibetan people, judging from the profusion of
messages he has posted on Twitter in recent months: There are photographs of
Tibetans in “unique exotic dress,” articles showcasing the Tibetan people
’s deep appreciation for China’s governance of the region and video clips
that portray happy Tibetans singing and dancing on state-run television.
首先，Tom Hugo似乎精通中文，然后，从他最近几个月在Twitter发的大量帖子看来，
他显然热切关心藏人：有藏人身着“独特民族服装”的图片，有表现藏族民众深切感激
汉人治理藏区的文章，还有展示欢快的藏人在官方电视台上载歌载舞的视频片段。
“Tibetans hail bumper harvest of highland barley,” read the headline on
one recent posting.
近期一则帖子的标题这样写道：《西藏民众欢庆青稞大丰收》。
There’s only one problem with Tom Hugo’s Twitter account: It’s fake.
Tom Hugo的Twitter账户只有一个问题：它是假的。
The visage accompanying the account belongs to a Brazilian model named
Felipe Berto, and nearly every video, article and photograph the ersatz Tom
Hugo tweets comes via propaganda websites linked to the Chinese government.
账户带的头像属于名为费利佩·贝尔托(Felipe Berto)的巴西模特，而且冒牌Tom Hugo
发的几乎每段视频、每篇文章和每幅图片都来自与中国政府有关的宣传网站。
The ruse is not an isolated one. In recent days, Free Tibet, an advocacy
group based in London, has identified nearly 100 similar sham accounts whose
sole purpose appears to be disseminating upbeat news and treacly stories
about Tibet and Xinjiang, the region in far-western China whose native
Uighurs, like the Tibetans, have bridled under Beijing’s heavy-handed rule.
这个花招并非孤例。近段时间，位于伦敦的维权团体自由西藏(Free Tibet)指认了近
100个类似的假账户，而它们的唯一目的似乎就是传播关于西藏和新疆的喜庆消息和美
好故事。新疆位于中国最西面，是维吾尔人的家乡。与藏人一样，维吾尔人也对北京的
强硬统治颇为不满。
“When it comes to Tibet, nothing that China does surprises us, but this
appears to be something new,” said Alistair Currie, the media manager for
Free Tibet, who says the group’s researchers have stumbled upon hundreds of
other Twitter accounts they believe were also created to spread China’s
view on a number of contentious issues. “It’s an insidious effort to
change the message and muddy the waters about Tibet.”
“涉及西藏的时候，中国做什么都不令人意外，但这次似乎是新现象，”自由西藏的媒
体主任阿里斯泰尔·柯里(Alistair Currie)说。他表示，该组织的研究人员还遇到了
数百个其他可疑Twitter账户，并认为创建它们的目的是传播中国在多个争议话题上的
观点。“这是一种阴险的行径，为的是在西藏议题上改变舆论，搅混水。”
Although there is no direct evidence to link the Chinese government to the
phony accounts, the content and breadth of the effort would suggest the
involvement of a state actor. The subterfuge is not dissimilar to that
carried out by members of China’s so-called Fifty Cent Party, the
government-paid lurkers who earn 0.5 renminbi per posting on Internet
message boards and chat rooms in an attempt to sway public opinion on issues
deemed politically delicate by the Communist Party. “I genuinely struggle
to think of anyone else who would stand to gain from this,” Mr. Currie said
of the fake Twitter accounts.
尽管没有直接证据表明中国政府与这些假账号有关，但其内容和广度意味着国家部门牵
涉其中。这种手法与俗称“五毛党”的政府水军的做法并无不同。“五毛党”潜伏在网
络论坛与聊天室中，据说每发一条贴挣5毛钱，为的是在共产党眼中的政治敏感问题上
左右舆论。谈到假Twitter账户时，柯里表示，“我绞尽脑汁也想不到还有别的什么人
能从中受益。”
An employee of Wuzhou Media Corporation, the Beijing company that creates
the websites often featured in such tweets, said he knew nothing about the
bogus accounts. But in an interview, he suggested that such tactics fit in
well with the company’s mission of producing propaganda tailored to Western
audiences. “We use a tone and style that’s easier for foreigners to
accept,” said the employee, who would give only his surname, Yu. The
company, he said, has a staff of nearly 300 people.
在此类Twitter帖子中频繁出现的一些网站由北京的五洲传播中心创建。公司一名员工
表示，他对所谓的假账号毫不知情。不过在接受采访时，他言语中流露出，此类手法完
全符合公司的使命，即度身打造面向西方观众的宣传材料。“口吻更容易让国外受众接
受，”这名仅愿透露自己姓于（音译）的员工表示。他还表示，公司有近300名员工。
The Foreign Ministry and the State Council Information Office, the
government agency that regulates the Internet in China, did not immediately
respond to interview requests on Monday.
外交部及国务院新闻办公室周一均未及时回应采访要求。后者是负责监管中国互联网的
政府机构。
The use of fake Twitter accounts would also appear to dovetail with China’
s increasingly sophisticated effort to present the country in a more
flattering light while trying to bring the world around to its point of view
on thorny issues, among them the continuing territorial dispute with Japan
and widespread perception in the West that China restricts religious freedom
and represses ethnic minorities like Tibetans and Uighurs.
采用假Twitter账户的做法似乎与中国日趋娴熟的宣传攻势相吻合。中国在通过这样的
宣传来呈现更正面的形象，从而努力让全世界赞同己方在棘手议题上的观点。这些议题
包括：中日之间的持续领土争端；以及西方的普遍看法：中国限制宗教自由，并压迫藏
人和维吾尔人等少数民族。
In recent years, the government has sprinkled hundreds of college campuses
across the globe with Confucius Institutes and financed overseas newscasts
of the national broadcaster CCTV in a half-dozen languages. In the most
recent soft power push, state-owned film companies have formed a partnership
with Hollywood to produce blockbusters like “Transformers: Age of
Extinction” that feature Chinese actors.
近年来，中国政府在世界各地的数百家高等院校设立孔子学院，并资助官方媒体中央电
视台用六七种语言进行海外传播。提升软实力的最新案例是，国有影视公司与好莱坞联
合制作有中国演员参演的大片，比如《变形金刚4：绝迹重生》(Transformers: Age of
Extinction)。
But when it comes to leveraging Western social media outlets like Twitter,
Facebook and YouTube — all of which are blocked here — Beijing’s efforts
would appear to be a bit ham-handed. On Twitter, many of the fake accounts
identified by Free Tibet use stock images or headshots found on the sites of
commercial photographers in the United States. Others employ the likenesses
of actors like Erica Durance, who played Lois Lane in the television series
“Smallville,” or in one case, Syd Barrett, the lead vocalist of Pink
Floyd, who died in 2006. Oddly, many of the Twitter handles, like Oliver
Nina, Felix James and Philomena Rebecca, appear to be created through the
combination of two first names. Nearly all the profile images are those of
Caucasians.
不过，在涉及影响Twitter、Facebook和YouTube——在中国，这三个网站都被屏蔽了—
—等西方社交媒体时，北京的努力似乎有些笨拙。在Twitter上，被自由西藏指认为假
账号中的许多账号使用的，都是能在美国商业摄影师的网站上找到的常见图片和头像。
其他一些账号采用的则是在电视连续剧《超人前传》(Smallville)中出演洛伊丝·莱恩
(Lois Lane)的埃莉卡·杜兰斯(Erica Durance)等演员的照片，其中一个账号用的居然
是已于2006年离世的平克·弗洛伊德(Pink Floyd)乐队主唱希德·巴雷特(Syd Barrett
)的照片。奇怪的是，许多此类Twitter账户名，如Oliver Nina、Felix James和
Philomena Rebecca，似乎是通过将两个不带姓氏的名字组合在一起拼凑出来的。几乎
所有头像上都是白种人。
Kirsten Kowalski, a photographer from suburban Atlanta, was dismayed to
learn that a portrait she had taken of a high school student ended up as
Lydia May, a woman who, judging from her tweets, was peeved by the Dalai
Lama’s visit to the United States this year but also thrilled to share with
her followers an article titled “Xinjiang eyes housing, education for
poverty mitigation.”
来自亚特兰大郊区的摄影师基尔斯滕·科瓦尔斯基(Kirsten Kowalski)失望地得知，她
拍摄的一名高中生的照片，最后成了Lydia May。从Twitter帖子来看，这名女子对达赖
喇嘛今年的访美很生气，却又很兴奋地和关注者分享一篇题为《新疆扶贫着眼于住房和
教育》的文章。
“It’s not like she’s being used to promote horrible stuff, but it’s
still her likeness and she’s just a teenager,” Ms. Kowalski said by phone.
“It’s kind of bizarre, and frustrating. And it’s also illegal, at least
in the United States.”
“并不是因为她被利用去宣传可怕的东西，而是因为这的确是她的照片，而她只是个小
姑娘，”科瓦尔斯基在电话上说。“有些匪夷所思，令人沮丧。而且这么做也是非法的
，至少在美国是。”
Fake accounts on Twitter are not new; some experts estimate that as many as
9 percent of all Twitter handles are made up, although the company says the
figure is under 5 percent, according to its securities filings. Jim Prosser
, a spokesman for Twitter, said the company works hard to weed out
illegitimate accounts and sometimes takes legal action against those who
abuse its rules. “We have a variety of automated and manual controls we
constantly use to detect, flag and suspend accounts created solely for spam
purposes,” he said in an email.
Twitter上的假账号并不新鲜。一些专家估计，Twitter上多达9%的账号是编出来的，但
该公司在提交给证券机构的文件中称，这一数字在5%以下。Twitter的发言人吉姆·普
罗瑟(Jim Prosser)表示，该公司努力清除非法账号，有时还会对那些违反规则的人采
取法律行动。“我们有各种各样自动和手动的管控措施，我们不断用这些措施检测、标
记和注销那些仅出于发布垃圾信息的目的而注册的账号，”他在电子邮件中说。
It’s hard to say whether the counterfeit Twitter accounts that disseminate
pro-Chinese propaganda are having the desired impact. Tom Hugo, the
shirtless wonder, has more than 2,600 followers, but many appear to be
fellow fraudsters who retweet the same material. One recent tweet, an
article that described the Dalai Lama as a “chess piece” used by the
United States to contain China, was retweeted 6,500 times.
很难说Twitter上那些传播支持中国的宣传内容的假账号，是否达到了想要的效果。无
上装美男Tom Hugo有2600多个关注者，但其中许多似乎是他的骗子同伙，转发同样的内
容。最近，一篇称达赖喇嘛是美国用来遏制中国的“棋子”的帖子被转发了6500次。
Most of the accounts, however, are more like that of the putative Felix
James, who has just a few dozen followers and who seems to rarely get
retweets of his bland postings about tourist attractions in Tibet (although
perhaps it’s because his profile photo, a man with a cellphone glued to his
ear, is a stock advertising image that can be found on scores of websites,
including those selling curtains, shipping containers and telecommunications
software).
然而，大部分账号更像这个自称Felix James的人。他只有几十个关注者，平淡乏味的
有关西藏旅游景点的帖子也很少被转发（尽管兴许是因为他的头像上是一名手机紧贴着
耳朵的男子，在包括销售窗帘、船运集装箱和通讯软件等几十家网站上，都能找到这张
常见的广告图片。）
In interviews, several genuine Twitter users who follow the fake ones said
they were not entirely surprised to learn they were following pro-China
propagandists. Some, like Scott Eddy, a consultant who helps entrepreneurs
expand their social media footprint, said they simply follow anyone who
agrees to follow them. “I’m pretty aggressive when it comes to building a
fan base,” Mr. Eddy, an American who lives in Bangkok, said in explaining
how he ended up with 479,000 Twitter followers.
在采访中，几名关注假账号的Twitter真实用户表示，得知自己关注的是支持中国的宣
传者时，他们一点都不觉得奇怪。其中一些人，比如帮助企业扩展在社交媒体上的影响
的顾问斯科特·埃迪(Scott Eddy)表示，他们不过是关注了所有同意关注自己的人。“
说到构建粉丝群，我很积极，”埃迪在解释自己如何在Twitter上获得了47.9万关注者
时说。他是一名生活在曼谷的美国人。
Asked whether he thought the creative minds behind the false pro-China
Twitter accounts were on to something, Mr. Eddy laughed. With so many
followers, he screens out all but the most compelling followers from his
timeline, ensuring that the fraudsters end up tweeting into a black hole. “
I want as big a stage as absolutely possible,” he said, “but that doesn’t
mean I want to read garbage.”
在被问及是否觉得Twitter上那些支持中国的账号背后的人找到了好办法时，埃迪笑了
。鉴于有这么多关注者，他会把那些最引人注目的人之外的所有关注者，从自己的最近
更新中筛选出去，确保那些造假者的推文发进黑洞。“我想要一个尽可能大的舞台，”
他说，“但这并不意味着我想看垃圾。”
Copyright © 2013 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.
杰安迪(Andrew Jacobs)是《纽约时报》驻京记者。
翻译：黄铮、陈亦亭 | c***h
发帖数: 1862 | |
|
