一个月前，当亚马逊宣布将在纽约和弗吉尼亚州建立地区办事处时，我写道，它误解了当时的情况：

Perhaps the furor over Amazon’s regional offices will blow over. But it’s hard not to feel today as if the company misread the room — overestimating the public’s appetite for a billion-dollar giveaway to one of the world’s biggest companies, and underestimating the public’s ability to raise hell on- and offline. Amazon may yet feel that pain, in the long run.

今天，亚马逊会见了150名**者，他们出席了第一次纽约市议会关于该计划的听证会。根据现场的报道，**者的担忧始于纽约计划给亚马逊30亿美元的奖励，以换取亚马逊在那里的位置，并说，创造了25000个就业机会。这是BuzzFeed中的莱蒂西亚·米兰达：

”You’re worth a trillion dollars,” New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson told the company, prompting applause and cheers from protesters in the hall. “Why do you need our $3 billion when we have crumbling subways, crumbling public housing, people without healthcare, public schools that are overcrowded?”

New York City Economic Development Corporation’s President James Patchett defended the deal at the hearing, along with Amazon’s vice president of public policy Brian Huseman and Amazon’s HQ2 search executive Holly Sullivan. Both Patchett and Huseman referenced an estimated $27.5 billion in tax revenue for the state and city over the next 25 years as a result of the project.

有时，亚马逊的高管们听上去有些耳聋——正如Shirin Ghaffary在Recode拍摄的这段对话：

Johnson criticized the company for making no mention of the potential impact on the city’s crumbling public transportation infrastructure, aside from a plan to build a helipad.

“Amazon will be paying for the helipad,” said Huseman — a clarification that was met with sarcastic laughs from the crowd.

“I would hope so!” said Johnson.

但正如记者们迅速补充的那样，**可能并不重要：市议会没有权力停止这项与纽约州和纽约市经济发展公司秘密达成的交易。

尽管如此，自交易宣布以来，亚马逊已经加大了游说力度。大卫·古德曼在《****》上报道。

For weeks, executives in charge of the company’s public policy have been making frequent flights to New York City from their offices in Washington, D.C. They visited the Queen**ridge Houses, the nation’s largest public housing development, a short walk from the future site of the Amazon offices, and have held meetings with community groups.

This month, the company hired SKDKnickerbocker, a prominent political c***ulting and public relati*** firm that has advised several Democratic campaigns and whose roster includes influential strategists like Anita Dunn, a top White House official in the Obama administration. Devon Puglia, a former spoke**an for the city comptroller, is leading the firm’s work on Amazon.

有证据表明，亲善之旅取得了成效：上周，昆尼皮亚克大学的一项民意调查发现，57%的纽约人表示赞成这项交易，而只有26%的人不赞成。

但我并不清楚亚马逊是否控制住了局面。尽管该公司的高管们努力安抚长岛市的居民，但一群员工仍在为该公司所称的不公平工作条件而大声疾呼。这是周三发起的工会运动的一部分。这是乔希·艾德尔森：

Employees backing the union effort said in interviews Tuesday that the issues at the warehouse include safety concerns, inadequate pay, and 12-hour shifts with insufficient breaks and unreasonable hourly quotas, after which they lose more of their day waiting unpaid in long lines for security checks.

”They talk to you like you’re nothing — all they care about is their numbers,” said Rashad Long, who makes $18.60 an hour and commutes four hours a day to work at the warehouse. “They talk to you like you’re a robot.”

该活动承诺在公司比以往任何时候都更加依赖积极的公众舆论的时候，给公司带来新的审查。经历科技繁荣的城市最近的历史是，所有高薪的新员工推高了住房成本，将长期居住的居民赶出了他们的社区。要赢得他们的支持，需要的不仅仅是支付直升机停机坪费用的承诺。

民主

WhatsApp如何助长印度的假新闻和暴力

蒂莫西·麦克劳克林（Timothy McLaughlin）是最新一位探讨WhatsApp对印度影响的人：

A former employee in Facebook’s India operati*** said the company was largely focused on bolstering two key metrics: the number of monthly active users and time spent on the platform. They failed to identify disinformation and false news flooding Facebook. This content then began to “migrate” to WhatsApp. “The thing about Facebook is that, as a company, unless it is knocked down it won’t learn,” says the former employee, who would only speak on condition of anonymity. […]

Meanwhile, the delay in a green light for the payment platform drags on. The company is now turning its focus to launching first in other countries, Daniels told the Economic Times, the clearest sign yet that the delay has become a large enough issue to force a rethinking of business strategy.

“黄背心”分享了太多关于斯特拉斯堡枪击案的阴谋论，以至于Facebook集团都在锁定他们的评论

莱恩·布罗德里克（Ryan Broderick）报道说，法国东部发生的一起枪击事件在Facebook上引发了广泛的阴谋论帖子，这些帖子与黄背心**活动有关：

One of the most prevalent c***piracy theories within the Yellow Vest groups started after a user uploaded a photo of a tweet on their computer screen to a group with around 37,000 members called “France Is Angry.” The post claims that the official Twitter account for the Grand Est and Bas-Rhin region, where Stra**ourg is located, warned people to stay away from the Christmas market an hour before the attack took place.

What the user didn’t seem to understand — along with the 6,000 other people who shared this post — is that timestamps on tweets are user-specific. If you don’t set-up your timezone properly on Twitter, it can lead to tweets showing the wrong timestamp.

谷歌首席执行官告诉国会的关于中国的事情——以及他没有告诉国会的事情

Colin Lecher在周二的听证会上仔细阅读了Sundar Pichai关于蜻蜓计划的发言：

Pichai also made it clear that, whether the company currently has no “plans” to launch the product, Google certainly hasn’t halted work completely. In fact, it has continued to devote substantial resources to the project. While saying the effort was “limited,” Pichai at one point said Google had devoted about 100 people to it, although The Intercept has reported the number is closer to 300. “I’m happy to, you know, c***ult, be transparent as we take steps toward launching a product in China,” Pichai said, suggesting there are ongoing conversati*** about what that future may bring for China.

谷歌首席执行官Sundar Pichai：他在接受采访后表示，对人工智能的担忧“非常合理”

在随后对Drew Harwell和Tony Romm的采访中，Pichai继续回避蜻蜓问题中最难的部分：

When asked if it’s possible that Google might make a product that allows Chinese officials to know who searches for sensitive terms, such as the Tiananmen Square massacre, Pichai said it was too soon to make any such judgments.

“It’s a hypothetical,” Pichai said. “We are so far away from being in that position.”

**称谷歌研究在越南开设代表处的步骤

据Mai Nguyen报道，由于当地法律旨在打击持不同政见者，谷歌可能在越南开设办事处：

The news comes as a controversial cybersecurity law is set to take effect next month, requiring global technology firms to open local offices and store data in the country.

“Google is studying steps to open a representative office in Vietnam,” the website quoted Kent as saying on Tuesday, and adding that Google would abide by laws of the host nation, while ensuring it does not contradict international laws.

在别处

Facebook硅谷总部**威胁引发疏散

这显然没有什么关系，但这是一年中一个可怕的时刻，之前在YouTube校园里看到过一次枪击事件。

Facebook和ZeniMax就Oculus VR和窃取机密达成法律诉讼

ZeniMax Media和Facebook就Oculus Rift VR耳机的**解决了长期存在的法律纠纷，ZeniMax声称这是窃取商业机密的结果。和解条款并未披露。

Facebook是如何策划针对其用户的阴谋的

克什米尔·希尔揭开了一个谜团：一名性工作者是如何被Facebook的“你可能认识的人”功能以她的真名反复透露给她的客户的。一个可能的罪魁祸首：该公司决定在上周英国议会发布的文件中公开，在未明确寻求用户许可的情况下收集Android联系人和通话数据：

As usual, Facebook’s machinati*** are shrouded in mystery to the detriment of its vulnerable users. If Facebook would be more forthcoming about the information it’s collecting about its users and how it uses that data, whether for advertising or for People You May Know, then users like Leila could protect themselves. But Facebook prefers to be vague, whether because it’s “proprietary information” or information that would disturb its users enough to abandon the platform altogether.

披露：谷歌的“双层”员工培训文件

Julie Carrie Wong获得了谷歌关于临时工、供应商和承包商（TVC）的培训手册，TVC占谷歌员工总数的49.95%。除此之外，这些文件还警告谷歌员工永远不要购买TVCs T恤衫作为感谢，而是建议员工通过Google+向他们发送一张精美的便条。这不是玩笑。

The risks Google appears to be most concerned about include standard insider threats, like leaks of proprietary information, but also – and especially – the risk of being found to be a joint employer, a legal designation which could be exceedingly costly for Google in terms of benefits.

Google’s treatment of TVCs has come under increased scrutiny by the company’s full-time employees (FTEs) amid a nascent labor movement at the company, which has seen workers speak out about both their own working conditi*** and the morality of the work they perform.

谷歌将Duck.com转给duckgo

谷歌在2010年收购了Duck.com，当时它收购了一种名为On2 Technologies的东西。尽管DuckDuckGo已经崛起成为一个著名的竞争对手（尽管名字很难说），但该公司将Duck.com重新定向到谷歌，这一直是一件非常可笑的小事。无论如何，谷歌现在已经把域名让给了DuckDuckGo。

数百万人看着你服药过量，你如何恢复？

警方和旁观者经常张贴吸毒者在毒瘾折磨中昏倒的照片。凯瑟琳·Q写道，这让许多吸毒者的康复变得更加复杂。Seeley、Julie Turkewitz、Jack Healy和Alan Blinder：

Addiction experts say the videos are doing little else than publicly shaming drug users, and the blunt horror of the images may actually increase the stigma against them. Users themselves disagree on whether the humiliation helped them clean up their lives.

“We’re showing you this video of them at the worst, most humiliating moment of their life,” said Daniel Raymond, deputy director of policy and planning at the Harm Reduction Coalition, an advocacy group. “The intent is not to help these people. The intent is to use them as an object lesson by scapegoating them.”

2018年是历史学家在推特上走红的一年。下面是他们如何**他们奇妙的线程。

Rebecca Onion通过提供有关当前事件的及时背景，描述了推特历史学家迅速走红的迷人现象：

“Probably the best thing about a Twitter thread is speed,” Joshua Rothman, of the University of Alabama, wrote in an email. Rothman posted a thread about the 19th century writer Charles Ball’s experience of family separation during the slave trade just as we were learning about the worst effects of the Trump administration’s border policies. “For historians, even writing an op-ed might have a delay of a couple of days. But Twitter allows for the tran**ission and circulation of historical knowledge and context in real time, as events are unfolding. And even though that speed does lead to less careful c***ideration than a lot of people might like to see, the news cycle moves so quickly that context sometimes never appears unless it’s provided on the spot.”

发射

Facebook通过动画照片、视频等重新设计生活事件功能

这很好。

Giphy为iOS 12用户推出了键盘扩展和标签**商

在2018年12月，GIF库仍然是一个独立的业务，这让我很疯狂。

拿

谷歌对于YouTube最大的问题仍然没有答案

Julia Alexander说Sundar Pichai应该让国会更好地回答他们关于YouTube的问题：

As it stands, YouTube’s community guidelines regarding hate speech and hateful content are somewhat vague. Videos that promote “violence against or has the primary purpose of inciting hatred against individuals or groups based on certain attributes,” violate the company’s terms of service, but that doesn’t include videos that pose a question. A video called “What is Frazzled.rip?” or “What is Q Anon” would be allowed on the platform, even though the recommended videos just off to the side create a dangerous rabbit hole for people to fall into.

Understanding how to fix this problem means understanding how people are using — and abusing — the system. It’s something that neither Pichai nor Wojcicki have an answer to right now.

国会混乱的谷歌听证会显示了为什么立法者需要监管该公司。

威尔·奥雷莫斯说，在昨天的皮卡听证会之后，国会因为他们那些听起来愚蠢的问题受到了不公平的诽谤：

Tempting as it is to mock members of Congress whose questi*** evinced confusion (Poe was not the last to mistake the iPhone for a Google product), the lesson here is not just that our lawmakers are old and out-of-touch. That neither Poe nor most Americans understand how Google’s vast digital surveillance network operates is not an indictment of them; it’s an indictment of Google.

Yes, the company offers a “privacy checkup” that walks users through an array of settings, as Pichai pointed out to lawmakers. But like rival Facebook and others in the online advertising game, it also tracks and targets people in all kinds of ways that remain opaque even to industry experts. These companies benefit from our ignorance because it’s easier to use their services when we’re not fully aware of the trade-offs to our privacy. And to some extent, they also benefit from Congress’ ignorance because it allows them to di**iss tough questi*** on technicalities.

2018年底的技术状况

阅读本·汤普森关于科技行业现状的想法总是值得的——尤其是当他的想法在标题中提到我的名字时！但简而言之，以下是他的其余论点：

This, then, is the state of technology in 2018: the enterprise market is thriving, and the c***umer market is stagnant, dominated by the “innovati***” that a few large behemoths deign to develop for c***umers (and probably by ripping off a **aller company). Meanwhile a backlash is brewing on both sides of the political spectrum, but with no immediately viable outlet through competition or antitrust action, the politics surrounding technology simply becomes ever more rancid.

为什么杰克·多尔西在缅甸不是问题所在；你是。

缅甸作家岩崎早矢告诉大家，杰克·多尔西在推特上说他最近在缅甸进行了10天的静心冥想，所以大家都要解雇他：

The truth is that there is no absolute truth. Who are you to say Dorsey can or can’t go to Myanmar? It’s completely different if he’s having tea with the the people who are truly to blame for the genocide. Is it so wrong for Dorsey to highlight the beauty of a country that has been so misunderstood by foreign media? This is by no means an endorsement of his privilege. Simply put, Myanmar could use more critical thinking from the world especially now, so that its economy can sustain and change continues. It’s been a democracy for six years after fifty+ years of coloniali** and military dictatorship. Six years after fifty years of oppression. When a problem is happening, is the solution to ignore it or address it in an actionable way?

There is so much to Myanmar that is hidden by the headlines, that its international identity has become two words: the Rohingya crisis. There is no doubt that there is an atrocity happening with an estimated 43,000 and possibly a lot more missing or dead, and that justice must be served. However, if you’re challenging the Myanmar government for not doing its job enough, what have you done today about America’s systemic racial injustices against African-Americans, or the separation of kids from their parents along the border?

最后。。。

2018年互联网上最糟糕的50件事

凯蒂·诺托普洛斯（Katie Notopoulos）和瑞安·布罗德里克（Ryan Broderick）保存了今年在网上看到的一些最糟糕的东西，包括潮汐吊舱肉光、刺猬音速咖喱和一系列令人难忘的可怕小吃，这对我们造成了极大的伤害。

如果你敢读的话就读吧。

跟我说

向我发送有关亚马逊的提示、评论、问题和公众评论：[email protected].