我在华盛顿特区度过了美好的一天，与国会工作人员、技术平台和同事举行了会议。我也有无线网络和时事通讯提供商。所以，感谢你们在过去两天里的理解，这次请享受一份早期的时事通讯。

8月，当人们开始担心谷歌为中国建立一个经过审查的搜索引擎时，我想知道这是否会给公司带来士气危机。当时，1400名员工签署了一份内部**书，要求提供更多有关该项目的信息。就在本周，一个（较小的）团体在媒体上发布消息，敦促谷歌放弃该项目。

这些员工写道：“蜻蜓点水还将促成审查制度和**指导的虚假信息，并破坏公众审议和异议所依赖的基本事实。”鉴于据报道中国**压制持不同政见者的声音，这种控制很可能被用来让边缘化的人保持沉默，并有利于促进**利益的信息。”

截至今天，已有400多名员工在这封信上签名，而昨天只有11名。到目前为止，关于蜻蜓的主要故事一直围绕着员工对搜索引擎的**。虽然据说一些员工倾向于返回中国，但我们很少听到他们的声音——除了高层管理人员在每周的全体员工会议上回避敌意问题之外。

但现在我们有了。今天，TechCrunch发布了一封来自谷歌员工的信，他们持相反的立场。据Jon Russell和Taylor Hatmaker报道，迄今已有500多人签署了该协议。信中部分内容如下：

Dragonfly still faces many difficulties and uncertainties, which can only be resolved by continuing efforts. The regulation requirements set by the Chinese government (like censorship) makes Dragonfly a challenging project. If we are not careful enough, the project can end up doing more harm than good. In any case, only with continuing efforts on Dragonfly can we learn how different approaches may work out in China, and find out if there is a way that is good for both the Chinese users and Google. Even if we fail, the findings can still be useful for bringing other services to China.

我敢说这封信主要是由一个有工程背景的人写的。值得注意的主要是它是多么冷静——尤其是与反对蜻蜓的员工所写的信相比。它们呼吁高管们的人性化——而支持蜻蜓的同行们只是简单地引用了道德中立的公司使命，即组织世界信息并使其有用。

当然，中国**已经做出了自己的努力来组织世界的信息，而且它经常以极为反乌托邦的方式对其公民使用这些信息。这也是我在文章中加入这么多关于中国社会信用、面部识别和其他数据驱动监控工具实验的链接的原因之一。我看了看中国，看到了一种“组织世界信息”的方法，如果不加以控制，我们所有人都会变得不那么自由。而谷歌人支持蜻蜓的写作，也就是所谓的天真，完全回避了这个问题。

8月份，我想知道Sundar Pichai对这个问题有何感想——以及对扰乱公司的内部冲突有何感想。从那以后，他一直在支持蜻蜓。而现在他做到了，这场冲突变得更加明显。

Pichai将在12月有机会解决这些和其他问题，届时他将在众议院司法委员会作证。托尼·罗姆报道说，这将是一次范围广泛的对话：

For Pichai, the hearing threatens to be a long wide-ranging review of Google’s business practices at a perilous political moment for the tech giant. Its closest peers, Facebook and Twitter, previously dispatched their top executives to address lawmakers’ questi*** — a session in the Senate in September that Pichai and Larry Page, the leader of Google parent Alphabet, opted at the time to skip. That decision left Democrats and Republicans around the Capitol frustrated and spoiling for a fight.

Since then, Google has faced immense critici** for its handling of a bug that may have exposed the personal data of hundreds of thousands of its users on Google+, its social network. The company discovered the incident in March but only revealed it in October.

我怀疑在12月份，很少有代表会谈论Google+。我怀疑他们中的很多人会对蜻蜓有疑问。与此同时，谷歌内部存在着一个裂痕，这个裂痕触及到了它想要成为的公司的核心——无论Pichai的收益如何，都将决定他的遗产，或许谷歌的遗产也将如此。

民主

监管机构对Facebook调查保持沉默

周二下午，参议员们问联邦贸易委员会主席，该委员会对Facebook的调查进展如何。David McCabe报道，主席乔·西蒙斯（Joe Sim***）不愿透露。粗鲁！

Blumenthal wasn’t satisfied with Sim***’ answers, though it is fairly standard for the FTC to disclose little about ongoing investigati***. The lawmaker said people “need to know when you will have some results” because “continuing violati*** clearly show” the issues with Facebook are not isolated cases.

前联邦贸易委员会官员说，Facebook代表就公司如何处理个人数据向国际领导人作了虚假陈述

前联邦贸易委员会首席技术专家Ashkan Soltani在国际议员委员会面前就Facebook上的错误信息作证。他声称，Facebook代表早些时候关于Facebook如何允许第三方开发者访问用户数据的声明具有误导性。

超党派的Facebook群组是事实核查者的下一个大挑战

Daniel Funke与Tow Center for Digital Journali**数字取证计划主任乔纳森·奥尔布赖特（Jonathan Albright）谈了他最近对错误信息的深入分析。关键的发现是：社交网络中的错误信息依然盛行。

Hundreds of different political groups with thousands of members produce c***piracy theories and misinformation, which then spread to more public parts of the platform. Moderators encourage others to screenshot false memes and photos so that they can avoid Facebook’s automated detection systems. And the company has been inc***istent in its enforcement of rules against accounts that violate its Community Standards, Albright found.

Another **all finding: One of the pages Facebook took down last month had more engagement over the past five years than The New York Times, The Washington Post and Breitbart combined.

众议院委员会审查推特首席执行官杰克·多尔西的虚假陈述证词

肖恩·戴维斯（Sean Davis）报道说，至少有一名众议院工作人员可能会追查多尔西，因为他证明推特的政策在政治上是中立的(共和党人认为禁止变性人“政治化”的政策是可行的。

另一个网络中立行动日吸引的大人物越来越少

克林特·芬利（Klint Finley）报告说，Etsy和Tumblr将鼓励他们的用户在12月10日国会恢复网络中立性保护的最后期限之前致电立法者，但科技巨头大多都在袖手旁观。

Thursday’s day of action appears to be drawing significantly less support than earlier, similar acti***. In 2014, in an effort to encourage the FCC to pass strong net neutrality rules, Netflix and many other sites joined a day of digital protest by displaying graphics on their sites warning users that internet speeds might slow without net neutrality protecti***. As part of another day of action last year aimed at stopping the FCC from throwing out the Obama-era rules, Mark Zuckerberg posted a statement on Facebook pointing to the effort’s website, Google posted a statement to its public policy blog, and Amazon joined hundreds of sites in displaying pro-net neutrality graphics. But earlier this year, when activists pressured the Senate to restore the FCC protecti***, many of the larger sites were absent from the public debate.

硅谷众议员罗·坎纳（Ro Khanna）在Vergecast上谈论技术监管问题

在Vergecast节目中，Nilay Patel和Makena Kelly与众议员Ro Khanna（加州民主党）就国会计划在新的一年里监管科技平台进行了交谈。卡纳是2019年值得关注的人物之一：

Khanna, who represents the California district that houses the Apple and Google campuses, was tasked with developing a set of principles these companies should abide by when it comes to issues like privacy, net neutrality, and anti-competitive behavior. He made the rounds, c***ulting with think tanks, the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, and the tech companies themselves. From those discussi***, Khanna was able to put forth a framework of 10 rights US citizens should have when they’re on the internet.

在别处

Facebook、Twitter严厉打击AI保姆评级服务

Drew Harwell报道了Predictim，这家初创公司“分析保姆的在线历史，包括在Facebook和Twitter上的历史，并提供他们是否有吸毒、欺凌或“不良态度”风险的评级。”Facebook和Twitter发现这一切对他们的口味来说有点反乌托邦，并正在取消API访问。

随着加密货币价格的下降，Steemit正在裁员近70%的团队成员以降低运营成本

Steemit曾经给我发过很多新闻稿，告诉我他们将如何通过将社交网络放在区块链上并为成功的帖子付费来重塑社交网络。这是一项崇高的努力，而且似乎注定要失败。问题似乎在于运行Steemit需要的是真正的钱，而不是加密代币：

Steemit said the move is a result of the weakness of the cryptocurrency market. Recently, the fiat returns on the automated selling of its native cryptocurrency STEEM diminished, while the costs of running full Steem nodes increased. Steemit will now focus their efforts on reducing operating costs of the product.

年轻的艺术家和**人接受微货币化

泰勒·洛伦兹探索了“微观货币化时代”，在这个时代里，绝对所有的社会互动都是**的。除了我，现在还有谁感到悲伤？

Noah wouldn’t tell me exactly what he brings in every month from social-media promotion, but deals such as the ones he does can quickly add up. “For a repost, depending on how long they want it up, it can go from $70 to $200,” he said. He charges $80 for an Instagram Stories swipe-up or a standard Twitter retweet, $100 to $150 for a quote tweet, and $150 for a tweet or a post to his Instagram feed. But everything is negotiable based on time: A post that’s live for only three hours will be much cheaper than one left up for 48 hours. He currently has 33,000 followers on Instagram and more than 80,000 on Twitter.

独家报道：前Snap高管伊姆兰·汗为新公司筹集1750万美元

Snap上个季度损失了159美元，因此负责运营其业务的人自然获得1750万美元，以启动“面向千禧一代的多品牌零售商”

发射

YouTube将提供原稿供广告支持的免费观看

YouTube Red，现在被称为Premium，包含了各种原创内容，这些内容（1）通常是无法获得的，至少对于那些没有沉浸在PewDiePie传说中长大的人来说是如此；以及（2）没有对订阅收入产生太大影响，这正是其最初的目的。托德·斯潘格勒（Todd Spangler）报告说，谷歌正在巧妙地改变这一方向，并将在广告的支持下，让所有人都能看到像《空手道小子》这样的原创剧集。（每次我谈到YouTube Premium，我都觉得有必要说，付费从YouTube上删除广告是我感觉最好的订阅方式之一——我现在更多地使用这种服务方式；对用户体验的好处是巨大的。）

推特已经禁止了性别错误或“死命名”变性人

Adi Robertson报道，Twitter可恶的内容政策现在明确禁止性别歧视或“死定”变性人，以及其他骚扰和虐待手段。该公司表示，这在其仇恨言论政策中是隐含的，但与许多推特政策一样，这一政策的实施也不稳定。

将人们与当地新闻和社区联系起来

Facebook应用程序的本地新闻部分目前正在扩展到400个城市，该公司正在测试来自**页面有关相关问题和危机的警报。

拿

硅谷是时候超越其谢丽尔·桑德伯格了

Jessi Hempel说，现在是时候让一位有权势的**领导人可以搞定一家以**为主的公司了：

Sure, Sandberg now needs to be held accountable for the role she played in Facebook’s current mess. And then, we need to retrieve the fix-it shero status from Sandberg and all the other badass female COOs working in tech. Instead, we must demand that tech’s most promising companies — no longer dorm room startups but, in fact, more valuable than many of the industry stalwarts that helm the Fortune 500 — be run the old-fashioned way. They’d do well to employ CEOs, regardless of founder status, who are accountable to boards of directors able to direct them and even to fire them, instead of having to manage around them.

如何在下一个科技时代生存（放慢脚步，留心）

法哈德·曼乔将从《****》的一个专栏退休，这样他就可以开始在《****》写另一个专栏了。在一个（伟大的！）在告别演说中，他告诉我们，除其他建议外，不要那么轻易地尝试新事物：

That’s why the most important lesson I’ve gleaned in writing this column is this: Just slow down. Don’t jump on the newest thing. If it isn’t plagued with bugs or security nightmares, some other unexpected, emergent risk probably lies within it — and whatever its short-term benefits, you may live to regret it.

福克斯新闻不是一家普通的媒体公司。我们必须停止把它当作一个。

大卫·克莱恩说福克斯新闻应该从上流社会中删除。思想实验：如果定义者发起了一场运动，将世界的弊病归咎于福克斯新闻而不是乔治·索罗斯，那会怎样？我们会多多少少有同情心吗？

The damage done by Fox News goes well beyond triggering the libs. In the lead-up to the November electi***, Fox referred to a looming “invasion” by Central American migrants over 60 times, making it a centerpiece of national news coverage. It whipped up the c***piracy theory that Democratic donors like George Soros are working to undermine America by flooding it with migrants and refugees. That vicious lie — as false and malevolent as anything pushed on Facebook by Russian propagandists in 2016 — appears to have directly inspired the massacre of Jewish worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pitt**urgh last month.

That was a particularly violent manifestation of the hatred and resentment Fox News has spread among milli*** of Americans, but have no doubt: This company is more resp***ible for the nationwide climate of xenophobia that enabled Trump’s presidency than any other single actor.

最后。。。

这头大奶牛激发了许多希望和欢乐

曾几何时，当世界悲伤和破碎的时候，一个惊人的形象打破了所有的聊天，把人们团结在敬畏中。这张照片是一头奶牛——一头非常大的奶牛。最终，怀疑论者会说不，这不是一头牛，而是一头事实上的牛。但是，即使是这些辩论也无法遏制人民的喜悦，因为他们迫切需要一个图腾来团结起来。他们不会停止寻找。他们拒绝被吓倒。

跟我说

给我发送提示、评论、问题和大**牛：[email protected].