现实经历了艰难的一年。当美国总统否认数千美国人死于飓风时，记者们面临着一场艰苦的战斗。这场斗争在社交网络上尤其令人担忧，在过去几年中，恶意行为者一直在那里兜售恶作剧和散布分裂。

但今天我至少给你们带来一个乐观的理由。”斯坦福大学和纽约大学的一项新研究分析了2015年1月至2018年7月假新闻网站上发布的故事的表现。以下是他们的发现（重点是我的）：

Interacti*** with these sites on both Facebook and Twitter rose steadily through the end of 2016. Interacti*** then fell sharply on Facebook while they continued to rise on Twitter, with the ratio of Facebook engagements to Twitter shares falling by approximately 60 percent. We see no similar pattern for other news, business, or culture sites, where interacti*** have been relatively stable over time and have followed similar trends on the two platforms both before and after the election.

在这项研究中，作者Hunt Allcott、Matthew Getzkow和Chuan Yu收集了一份570个网站的列表，这些网站在以前的故事中被认定为虚假故事的贩子。然后，它测量了一系列出版商的参与情况——大型主流出版商、小型主流出版商和利基商业文化网站，以及假冒网站。

以下是研究结果中的关键段落：

The results show that interacti*** with the fake news sites in our database rose steadily on both Facebook and Twitter from early 2015 to the months just after the 2016 election. Interacti*** then declined by more than half on Facebook, while they continued to rise on Twitter. The ratio of Facebook engagements to Twitter shares was roughly steady at around 40:1 from the beginning of our period to late 2016, then fell to roughly 15:1 by the end of our sample period. In contrast, 2 interacti*** with major news sites, **all news sites, and business and culture sites have all remained relatively stable over time, and have followed similar trends on Facebook and Twitter both before and after the 2016 election. While this evidence is far from definitive, we see it as c***istent with the view that the overall magnitude of the misinformation problem may have declined, at least temporarily, and that efforts by Facebook following the 2016 election to limit the diffusion of misinformation may have had a meaningful impact.

那么需要注意的是什么呢？作者提到了一些。第一，新的假新闻发布者不断出现并消失。这项研究只测量了持续时间较长的站点的性能——尽管考虑到它们在平台上的相对稳定性，它们可能是一些最大的错误信息传播者。正如作者所指出的，假新闻发布者经常更改域名以逃避检测并进一步迷惑人们。

这里还有一些。不良内容被公开共享的程度只是衡量平台健康状况的一种方法。平台还通过禁止创建虚假账户、过滤搜索结果和趋势中的恶作剧等方式，先发制人地打击虚假信息。本研究中确定的比率并未考虑这些因素。此外，有时人们分享不好的内容是为了揭穿它——例如，一条引用推特说“这是垃圾”。作者似乎没有考虑到这种分享，尽管我正在询问。

最后，由于今年早些时候推出的新闻提要的变化，Facebook已经缩小了几乎所有新闻网站的覆盖范围。这不应该影响我们如何看待研究确定的比率，但重要的是要记住，大多数人在他们的饲料中看到的新闻越来越少。

尽管如此，我还是很欣赏这项研究的价值，以及它所代表的平台所做的工作。通常，高管们只向我们提供关于“取得进展”的陈词滥调；这项研究提供了一个进展情况。

它还提供了未来问题的严重性。作者发现，在推特上，虚假新闻每月约有400万至600万次，而且自选举以来一直如此。在Facebook上，虚假新闻的参与度从2016年的2亿左右大幅下降——与合法新闻的参与度大致相同。但是，假新闻每月仍有7000万人次参与，这足以污染信息生态系统，使其变得不可靠。

我还是宁愿在这里寻找一线希望。Facebook禁止假新闻发布者使用其广告工具，从而使他们不再使用网络。通过与事实核查人员的合作，可以让可靠的消息来源评估新闻报道是否虚假，并据此对其进行排名。而且，它还对新闻文章进行了非暴力化处理，支持朋友和家人的帖子——这当然是喜忧参半，但在劝阻恶作剧的狭隘案例中或许是有用的。

我希望未来的研究能够检验这些方法的相对有效性。我还认为，这些平台有机会彼此分享最佳实践，并（以更有限的方式）与公众分享最佳实践。

与此同时，我很高兴看到一些可以量化的进展。以下是图表：

民主

谷歌中国原型将搜索链接到电话号码

Ryan Gallagher还有一个蜻蜓勺。他写道，谷歌“探索性”搜索引擎中经过审查的中文术语将包括“人权”、“学生**”和“诺贝尔奖”：

Google built a prototype of a censored search engine for China that links users’ searches to their personal phone numbers, thus making it easier for the Chinese government to monitor people’s queries, The Intercept can reveal.

The search engine, codenamed Dragonfly, was designed for Android devices, and would remove content deemed sensitive by China’s ruling Communist Party regime, such as information about political dissidents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest.

Twitter首席执行官杰克·多尔西接受纽约大学教授杰伊·罗森的采访；播客

杰伊·罗森采访了杰克·多尔西，他为推特推出了一个新的比喻：公园。在我有任何评论之前，我会先消化一下。但这里有很多好东西——这可能是当前周期中最好的多尔西采访。他谈到编辑推文的复杂性；关于黑人推特社区如何开始在他们的显示名称中添加状态指示器，以及更多。但鉴于过去几个月对推特自我概念的讨论，这是最相关的片段：

DORSEY: Upon further reflection, we are being used more like what you would find in Washington Square Park. You walk into Washington Square Park and there’s a bunch of people who, when I walk in, there’s a bunch of people there who are not expecting me to walk in and aren’t expecting me to do the things that I intend to do and might see it out of the corner of their eye and might come over and listen or interact or whatnot. In that public square, there’s all these things that happen and some are amazing, and some are stupid, and some are silly, and some are really terrible. There’s a guy in the corner with a megaphone broadcasting his thoughts and then he recognizes you and he says, “Jay, get the hell over here. You’re a terrible person and I hate you,” and all these other things. And it’s completely directed at you.

And at that point, people recognize it and they tell him to stop, or the park stewards or police come over and say, “Here’s a warning and if you keep attacking this one person who doesn’t want it and is not even paying attention to you, then you’re out.” So that action right there was not neutrality, it was being impartial to the conduct and with an eye towards more of the collective, with an eye towards like, “We need to make Washington Square Park something that people actually want to be at and recognize that there’s going to be people who choose unhealthy behaviors and we’re going to at least dem***trate what is not healthy and what could be healthier.”

越南敦促Facebook在有争议的网络法出台之前开设办公室

批评人士说，越来越多的国家要求科技公司在本地存储用户数据，越南是其中之一，部分原因是为了打击异见。越南现在正式要求Facebook在越南开设办事处，以便它能够做到这一点。Facebook没有评论：

In July, seventeen U.S. lawmakers urged the chief executives of Facebook and Google to resist changes stipulated by the new law.

Last week, acting information minister Hung said Vietnam should promote home-grown social networks in order to compete with Google and Facebook and capture more of the social network market share in Vietnam, state media reported.

Facebook表示，这篇关于菲律宾参议员行刑队的帖子并不违反其规定

戴维·阿尔巴（Davey Alba）刚刚在Facebook和菲律宾上写了一篇长篇文章，他发现一篇帖子说，对菲律宾总统罗德里戈·杜特尔特（Rodrigo Duterte）的高调批评者、参议员安东尼奥·特里兰斯四世（Antonio Trillanes IV）的处决是“一件有趣的事情”。Facebook表示，这并不违反社区准则：

And so it remains — with 12,000 reacti***, nearly 3,000 shares, and more than 1,200 comments. Here’s one: “Can we just shoot him now and explain later?” Here’s another: “Just cremate Trillanes alive.” (Facebook deleted a handful of comments after BuzzFeed News inquired about the post.)

在别处

危机应对

Facebook已经为北卡罗来纳州的飓风佛罗伦萨启动了危机响应页面。

Forlini是如何在Instagram大军中生存下来的-****

亚历克斯·瓦杜库尔写道：“如果说还有什么比一家老派餐馆不酷更糟糕的事情的话，那就是一家老派餐馆突然变得炙手可热了。”福里尼是纽约市一家基本上不起眼的老意大利餐馆，由于Instagram，它突然变得炙手可热：

Interest in Forlini’s undeniably accelerated last May after Vogue magazine hosted its lavish pre-Met Gala party there. Alexa Chung, Kate Bosworth and Hailey Baldwin attended, a D.J. played until morning, and the event had its own hashtag: “#spaghettiandMetballs.”

The Forlini’s selfie became a coveted social media accomplishment shortly after the spectacle. Recently, a Vogue writer named Brooke Bobb happened to be dining at Forlini’s, and she had some thoughts on the phenomenon. “It’s becoming a spot,” said Ms. Bobb, 31. “One of those places that has become Instagrammable. It’s not really about the food. It’s about looking cool on the couches. Getting a million likes from sitting in the booths and posing like models. That’s just what happens when something goes viral now.”

小奥德尔·贝克汉姆在Facebook Watch上的Docu系列“我更喜欢：OBJ”

NFL球星小奥德尔·贝克汉姆是Facebook观看的一部新纪录片《我是更多：OBJ》的明星。

The 16-episode series, which bows Friday, Sept. 14, is produced by Uninterrupted, the sports-media company founded by LeBron James and his business partner Maverick Carter. Subsequent episodes of “I Am More: OBJ” will hit on Fridays throughout the course of the NFL season on Facebook Watch and the show’s page at facebook.com/IAMMOREOBJ.

Twitch聘请了第一位多元化和包容性负责人

Lisa Marie Segarra报告称，亚马逊拥有的流媒体服务Twitch的四位高管现在都是**：

Rangachary and Weaver also bring the total number of women in Twitch’s C-Suite to four out of seven. It’s an anomaly in the male-dominated tech industry, especially for a company with an emphasis on gaming, an industry that is dominated by men.

科技巨头联手得分AI芯片（美元）

Aaron Tilley报道，Facebook是参与最新人工智能芯片基准测试的科技巨头之一。这是一个非常有争议的过程！

The companies involved in creating the new benchmark say they’re eager to make the test fair. Last May, Google, Baidu, Intel, Arm and a number of AI chip startups were among the first to join the project. Since then, The Information has learned, the U.S.-based tech giants investing the most in AI—Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon—have quietly joined the effort as unofficial participants, as has Nvidia, an important maker of chips for AI applicati***, according to multiple participants in the project.

The outcome of the project could help determine how investments are made in the artificial intelligence chip market, forecast to be worth more than $90 billion in 2025.

拿

真实新闻的问题——以及我们能做些什么

罗布·维恩伯格（Rob Wijnberg）是荷兰一家名为De-Teleptor的新闻网站的众筹资金人，他说当前的新闻环境“都是耸人听闻的、特殊的、负面的和时事的”，这严重扭曲了我们的现实感它给了我们一个关于概率、历史、进步、发展和相关性的严重扭曲的观点，”维恩伯格写道。他建议其他组织效仿他的做法：

At De Correspondent in the Netherlands, we try to tell precisely those stories that aren’t news, but news-worthy nevertheless. Or, as we often say, that reveal not the weather but the climate. Those stories are written by correspondents who don’t have a news-driven schedule to meet, and thus can take the time they need to develop an area of expertise and learn to recognize and describe the truly influential developments of our time. Our ultimate goal: to replace the sensational with the foundational and the recent with the relevant.

最后。。。

让我们以一张温馨的纸条结束这一周。虽然社交世界以其无情的抄袭而闻名，但互联网浏览器建设的低风险世界却是绝对的学院式的。浏览器**商用蛋糕庆祝彼此的传统由来已久，这一传统还有什么意义呢？

祝更多的公司互相送去祝贺糕点。我们都在一起，伙计们。

跟我说

向我发送提示、问题、评论和周末计划：[email protected].