廣告商強烈要求 臉書才會改變

Facebook has endured one of the most punishing stretches of corporate coverage in recent memory, exposing its immense power and blithe disregard for its deleterious impacts.

臉書遭受近期對企業最嚴酷的連篇累牘報導，暴露出臉書手握大權且毫不在乎自己對人們的危害。

But none of it really matters.

但這些統統無關緊要。

One overarching theme of the coverage, prompted by the meting out of tens of thousands of pages of internal documents by the whistleblower and former employee Frances Haugen, is that Facebook’s business priorities trump user privacy and safety. Facebook, Haugen told the Senate last month, knows how to remedy many of its problems “but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.”

這些報導依據吹哨人、臉書前員工郝根洩露的數萬頁內部文件而發，最重要主題是臉書讓商業利益凌駕用戶隱私與安全。郝根上月告訴美國聯邦參議院，臉書知道如何修補許多問題，「卻不肯做出必要改變，因為他們把天文數字的利潤看得比民眾重要」。

The Washington Post last week detailed how Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, often overruled researchers’ concerns and suggestions in pursuit of growth. And The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on Haugen’s trove, demonstrated how Facebook continued to pursue younger users despite evidence that Instagram negatively affected the mental health of teenagers and worsened some teen girls’ body image issues.

華盛頓郵報上個月詳細報導，臉書執行長祖克柏經常為了追求公司成長，不顧研究人員的憂慮和建言。率先披露郝根文件的華爾街日報則展示，儘管證據顯示臉書旗下社群軟體Instagram有損青少年心理健康，並使一些青少女對自己體態評價較低的問題惡化，臉書仍持續追求年輕用戶。

The coverage — including documentation that Facebook largely neglected regions outside the United States that are more susceptible to real-world harm from social media posts, among other ills — presents a chilling portrait of a company willing to let its website be overrun by hateful rhetoric, dangerous misinformation and propaganda in pursuit of the almighty buck.

文件還顯示，臉書在很大程度上未能監管美國以外地區，這些地區用戶比美國用戶更容易因為社群媒體貼文，而面臨在真實世界受害等問題。這些報導刻劃出臉書令人心寒的形象，就是為了追求萬能的金錢，寧可讓自家網站充斥仇恨言論、危險的錯誤資訊和宣傳內容。

Facebook, of course, denies this, noting an investment of $13 billion and 40,000 employees “to do one job: keep people safe on Facebook.”

臉書當然否認，說已投入130億美元和4萬名員工「就做一件事：讓人們安全上臉書」。

Why doesn’t this spiraling public relations crisis matter? Facebook simply hasn’t been compelled to change its behavior. If pure profit, rather than safety or the dissemination of correct information, is the company’s goal, it is a roaring success.

這個急遽惡化的公關危機怎會不重要？臉書只是還沒被逼著改變。如果臉書的目標只是獲利，而不是用戶安全或讓正確資訊傳播，那麼臉書已取得巨大成功。

Advertisers are sticking by Zuckerberg. In Facebook’s third quarter, ad sales jumped 33% from the same period the year before, to $28.3 billion, helping push profits up 17% to $9.2 billion.

廣告主一直支持祖克柏。臉書今年第三季廣告營收比去年同期激增33%，達283億美元，使淨利年增17%達92億美元。

Until advertisers start paring back their spending on Facebook, Congress, Haugen and the press are but bumps in the road. Why would Pfizer or Nike walk away? Facebook is where their buyers are, and it’s where Pfizer can ensure that drug marketing will be seen by 40-something rheumatoid arthritis sufferers.

除非廣告主開始大砍臉書廣告費，否則國會、郝根和媒體都只是路上的小顛簸。憑什麼輝瑞和耐吉要離開臉書？臉書是客戶所在地，而且輝瑞可以確定藥品廣告能精準投放給40多歲類風濕性關節炎患者看到。

Facebook has demonstrated it won’t address its systemic problems until forced to do so. Now, it appears, only advertisers can make the status quo unprofitable and unsustainable.

臉書已顯示，除非被逼，否則不會主動解決系統性問題。現在看來，唯有廣告主能使現狀無利可圖且無以為繼。

諾貝爾得主的書 冷門難買

When Abdulrazak Gurnah released his 10th book, “Afterlives,” last year, his editor was sure it would become his first major bestseller. For more than three decades, he had drawn stellar reviews but never gained a large readership.

坦尚尼亞作家古納去年出版第十本書「死後」（暫譯）時，編輯確信這將成為他第一本重要暢銷書。30多年來，古納的書叫好不叫座。

“I have felt there’s a much bigger audience for him out there,” said Alexandra Pringle, executive publisher of Bloomsbury, who has worked with Gurnah for more than 20 years. “I thought, ‘This is it, this is going to be his moment.’ ”

與古納合作20多年的英國布魯姆斯伯里出版社總發行人亞歷珊卓．普林格爾說：「我一直覺得古納的讀者應該要多得多才對。我當時想，『這就是了，他要出名了』。」

“Afterlives,” which explores the brutality of Germany’s colonial rule in East Africa, came out in Britain in September 2020 and was hailed as a masterpiece. But it failed to reach a wide readership and wasn’t even published in the United States. Pringle wondered if Gurnah’s moment might never come.

探討德國在東非殘酷殖民統治的「死後」2020年9月在英國上市，被譽為經典之作，卻未能暢銷，甚至沒在美國出版。普林格爾當時猜想，古納是否永遠都不會成名。

A year later, it finally did. Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, landing him in the company of Gabriel García Márquez, Albert Camus and William Faulkner, and he became the first Black laureate since Toni Morrison in 1993. The news sent booksellers across the world scrambling to stock his novels and set off a frenzy to secure translation and reprint rights. His agent, Peter Straus, said foreign rights to his books have sold in “30 territories and rising.”

一年之後，古納終於紅了。他榮獲諾貝爾文學獎，與馬奎斯、卡繆和福克納等人並列世界知名作家，而且是自1993年美國小說家童妮．摩里森以來，首位獲得諾貝爾文學獎的非裔作家。這個消息讓全球各地書商連忙進他的小說，並引發爭搶翻譯和再版權的熱潮。古納的經紀人史特勞斯說，古納作品的外國版權已賣給「30個地區，而且還在增加」。

After the Nobel announcement, Straus began fielding bids from six American publishers for “Afterlives.” U.S. rights to the novel sold to Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin Random House, which plans to release it in August 2022. Riverhead also acquired North American rights to two older Gurnah books, “By the Sea” and “Desertion,” that had gone out of print.

古納摘下諾貝爾獎桂冠後，美國6家出版社向史特勞斯表明有意出版「死後」。這部小說的美國版權賣給「河口」，這是「企鵝藍燈書屋」印在書籍上的出版商名稱，河口打算2022年8月出版。河口還買下古納兩本絕版舊作「海邊」和「遺棄」的北美版權。

Rebecca Saletan, who acquired the books for Riverhead, said in a news release that she was drawn to the “combination of narrative magic and a deeply inhabited and often devastating portrayal of the colonial and postcolonial experience” in Gurnah's work.

為河口取得古納作品版權的麗貝卡．薩萊坦在新聞稿中說，她被古納作品吸引是因為「既有敘事魅力，又深刻且往往令人震撼地描述殖民與後殖民經驗」。

But as offers poured in from international publishing houses, many readers who were eager to sample Gurnah’s work were frustrated. The audience was suddenly there, but copies of his books were not — in several cases, even e-book and audiobook versions aren’t available.

但各國出版社爭相購買古納作品版權之際，許多急著一睹古納作品的讀者不免失望。廣大讀者突然出現，他的書卻印得不夠多，有時甚至連電子書和有聲書版本都沒有。

The reasons for the shortfall are manifold. Because of the low demand for Gurnah’s work over the decades, many of his titles were out of print in the United States and in low stock in Britain.

古納作品難買的原因很多。他的書數十年來乏人問津，許多已在美國絕版，在英國庫存也很少。