應(yīng)該通過《誠實廣告法案》

If there was ever a piece of no-brainer legislation that should be passed by Congress, it is the Honest Ads Act put forward last week by US senators Amy Klobuchar, Mark Warner and John McCain. This bipartisan group is asking for online political advertising to be subject to the same rules of disclosure as ads on television, print, and radio. The idea is to make sure that foreign nations like Russia cannot use platforms such as Facebook, Google or Twitter to influence US elections, as they did in 2016.

如果說美國歷史上有一部無需國會動腦就應(yīng)該通過的立法，那就是上周美國參議員埃米•克羅布徹(Amy Klobuchar)、馬克•華納(Mark Warner)和約翰•麥凱恩(John McCain)提出的《誠實廣告法案》(Honest Ads Act)。這個兩黨小組要求在線政治廣告遵循與電視、印刷、廣播廣告同樣的信息披露規(guī)則。其出發(fā)點是確保俄羅斯等外國無法像在2016年那樣利用Facebook、谷歌(Google)或Twitter等平臺影響美國大選。

The legislation is necessary for three reasons. First, it would even the playing field between platform companies and the rest of the media industry. This is long overdue. Google and Facebook together take roughly 85 per cent of all new digital advertising revenue. For years, they have come up with absurd excuses for why they should not be subject to the same rules as everyone else (online ads are too small to include disclaimers; it is too tough to figure out if ads are commercial or political, and so on).

這一立法是必要的，原因有三點。首先，這樣做可以讓網(wǎng)絡(luò)平臺公司與其他媒體之間的競爭環(huán)境變得公平。其實早該如此了。谷歌與Facebook兩家拿走了全部新數(shù)字廣告收入的約85%。對于他們?yōu)槭裁床粦?yīng)受制于與其他媒體一樣的規(guī)則，多年來他們想出一些奇葩的借口(在線廣告太小，無法包含免責(zé)聲明;很難弄清楚一些廣告是商業(yè)性質(zhì)的還是政治性質(zhì)的，等等)。

Their reasoning does not hold water. These businesses have traditionally been just fine using the smallest of small print on privacy policies, so it should not be too much trouble to do the same thing with political disclosures. And if it is too tough to figure out what is political, play it safe and disclose everything.

他們的理由站不住腳。這些企業(yè)一直在隱私政策上使用最小號字體，似乎也沒什么問題，因此在政治披露方面做同樣的事情應(yīng)該不會太麻煩。而且，如果難以弄清楚什么是政治廣告，那就穩(wěn)妥一些，披露一切。

Of course they do not want to do that, because opacity is a key part of what political operatives are paying for. That is reason number two that this legislation should pass — it would go some way towards cleaning up dark money and influence in politics.

他們當(dāng)然不想這樣做，因為不透明正是政治操盤手要購買的東西。這是上述法案應(yīng)該通過的第二項理由——它將在一定程度上清除政治中見不得人的資金和影響力。

Online advertising is hyper-targeted. That is the whole appeal. We get to see things that are meant for our eyes only. Rather than clear, broad messages that are put where everyone can see them, online advertising can play to the deepest fears of individuals, allowing them to be exploited with divisive or hateful messages that could be much more easily called out and debunked if they were, say, being shown on national TV or in a print advertisement in a major paper.

在線廣告具有極強(qiáng)的針對性。這種廣告形式的吸引力就在于此。我們傾向于看到專門針對我們的內(nèi)容。與大家都能看到的清楚、寬泛的信息不同，網(wǎng)絡(luò)廣告可以激起個人最深層的恐懼，使他們被煽動分裂或仇恨的信息利用，這類信息如果出現(xiàn)在全國電視臺或者主流報紙的印刷廣告中，就會更容易被發(fā)現(xiàn)和揭穿。

Indeed, as one political insider put it to me, it is not just the Russians, but our politicians themselves who want to keep their advertising in the dark. Consider, for example, the Trump campaign’s xenophobic pre-election posts on Facebook. The US president is somewhat singular in that he does not seem to mind openly dog-whistling. But others might well be deterred from taking the low road if they could be openly named and shamed for doing so.

的確，正如一位政治圈內(nèi)人對我所言，不僅是俄羅斯人，其實我們的政客也希望隱瞞自己的政治廣告。例如，看看特朗普競選團(tuán)隊大選前在Facebook上發(fā)布的排外帖子。美國總統(tǒng)有些奇特，因為他似乎并不介意公開跳出來說難聽的話。但其他人很可能不敢采用這種下三濫方式——如果他們這樣做會被曝光，搞得下不了臺。

The third reason the Honest Ads Act should pass is it would be a step towards reframing the regulatory debate around Big Tech. Large and powerful industries and companies that enjoy monopoly rents often like to portray themselves as “special” or “different”, and thus in need of a separate set of rules.

《誠實廣告法案》應(yīng)該通過的第三個原因是，它將朝著重新框定圍繞大科技公司的監(jiān)管辯論邁出一步。享受壟斷“租金”的大型、有影響力的行業(yè)和公司，往往喜歡將自身描繪為“特殊的”或“不同的”，因此需要一套單獨的規(guī)則。

After a time, this idea of a separate playing field gets normalised. Monopolists also use complexity to obfuscate clear debate about what they are actually doing, and whose interests they are serving. I cannot tell you how many conversations I have had with fast talking financiers — and more recently, technologists — who try to throw as much jargon against the wall as fast as possible to see what sticks.

一段時間過后，這種“特殊競爭環(huán)境”的觀念被正?；艛嗾哌€利用復(fù)雜性來模糊關(guān)于他們在做什么以及他們?yōu)檎l的利益服務(wù)的清楚辯論。我記不清自己與那些滔滔不絕的金融家們——而最近是與技術(shù)專家們——進(jìn)行過多少次對話，其間他們試圖盡可能多且快地拋出行話，看看哪個能把我鎮(zhèn)住。

Yet the best questions are often the simplest ones. In the case of the financial sector, it was and remains: “What is the industry doing that is good for the real economy, versus what is good only for the financial industry?” We await a clear answer there. In the case of Big Tech, we might start with the question: “Are you playing by the same rules as everyone else, and if not, why not?”

然而，最好的問題往往是最簡單的。就金融業(yè)而言，這個問題一直是：“行業(yè)做的什么事對實體經(jīng)濟(jì)有利，而不是僅對金融業(yè)有好處?”至今我們?nèi)栽诘却粋€明確的答案。對大型科技公司而言，我們或許可以從這個問題開始：“貴公司與其他所有公司遵循同樣的規(guī)則嗎?如果不是，為什么?”

The answer to the first question is clearly no. I hope that the Honest Ads Act will pass, and that lawmakers will move on to examining Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which says that platforms are not responsible for what their users post.

第一個問題的答案顯然是否定的。我希望《誠實廣告法案》能夠通過，而立法者接下來將把目光投向1996年《通信內(nèi)容端正法》(CDA)第230條，該條規(guī)定，平臺可以不對用戶在其網(wǎng)站上發(fā)布的內(nèi)容負(fù)責(zé)。

It is a get-out-of-jail free clause which has protected the industry from all sorts of legal issues that most businesses deal with every day, and is as outdated and unfair as the loopholes around political ad disclosure online.

這項“免責(zé)金牌”保護(hù)了該行業(yè)免受大多數(shù)企業(yè)要應(yīng)對的各種日常法律問題的困擾，它與在線政治廣告披露方面的漏洞一樣過時和不公平。

Regulators should also look a lot more carefully at whether the M&A practices of the tech titans are anti-competitive. Consider Facebook’s recent purchase of tbh, a polling app aimed at teenagers, on which 5m users have posted 1bn questions since its launch three months ago.

監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)還應(yīng)更仔細(xì)地審視科技巨頭的并購行為是否違背了競爭原則。想想Facebook最近收購了對主要面向青少年的投票應(yīng)用tbh，自該應(yīng)用三個月之前推出以來，已有500萬用戶發(fā)布了10億條信息。

As Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, a think-tank, tweeted: “Facebook is buying a competitor that undercuts its data-harvesting business model. FTC [the US Federal Trade Commission] should block this merger.”

正如智庫開放市場研究所(Open Markets Institute)研究員馬特•斯托勒(Matt Stoller)在Twitter上所寫的：“Facebook正在收購一個削弱其數(shù)據(jù)收集業(yè)務(wù)模式的競爭對手。美國聯(lián)邦貿(mào)易委員會(FTC)應(yīng)該阻止這一合并。”

I also hope that lawmakers will begin to educate themselves more thoroughly about the 21st-century digital economy. There are a handful of politicians who have done so. But not many.

我還希望立法者們能開始更徹底地去了解21世紀(jì)的數(shù)字經(jīng)濟(jì)。有幾位政界人士這樣做過，但不多。

I recently asked one high-level software developer from a Big Tech company, someone who frequently visits Washington, to rank technological understanding among not only Congress members, but among the Capitol Hill staffers who brief them. On a scale of zero to 10, he put that understanding at “negative 10”.

最近，我請某家大型科技公司一名經(jīng)常訪問華盛頓的高級別軟件開發(fā)者做一件事：對國會議員以及國會工作人員對科技的理解給出0到10的評分。他給出的評分是“-10”。

That is great for his company. But it is dangerous for the rest of us, because understanding Big Tech is now crucial to understanding not only politics, but the economy at large.

這對他的公司而言是件好事。但對我們來說是危險的，因為如今了解大型科技公司不僅對了解政治、而且對了解整個經(jīng)濟(jì)都至關(guān)重要。

[email protected] 譯者/何黎