中國(guó)社交媒體打破沉默也帶來(lái)雜音

由雕龍文庫(kù) 分享時(shí)間：2024-03-10 20:44:15 收藏本文

Last Thursday morning I was on the bus to work inthe central business district of Beijing, browsingsocial media and loathing myself for obsessing over posts about fashion, when I saw a pictureof black and purple smoke rising over thousands of completely burnt-out cars. News travelsfast in China these days. The photo was reposted by a friend of mine, who is from Tianjin. Itlooked like a war zone.

上周四早晨，我坐在公交車(chē)上，要到北京中央商務(wù)區(qū)(CBD)去上班。我一邊瀏覽著社交媒體，一邊為自己沉迷于時(shí)尚類(lèi)帖子而自我唾棄，這時(shí)我看到了一張照片：在數(shù)千輛完全被燒毀的汽車(chē)上空，冒著黑色和紫色的濃煙。如今，資訊在中國(guó)傳播得很快。這張照片是天津的一個(gè)朋友轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)的。那場(chǎng)景看起來(lái)像戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)。

The last time I saw something this terrifying was seven years ago. Back then I was working as ajournalist for the Chinese state media, and on the afternoon of May 12 a friend called to tell methere had been a major earthquake near his home town in Sichuan province. He hung up in arush, saying he needed to check if his parents were safe.

上一次我見(jiàn)到同等級(jí)別的可怕場(chǎng)景還是在7年前。當(dāng)時(shí)我是中國(guó)官方媒體的一名記者。那年5月12日下午，一位朋友打電話給我，說(shuō)他在四川省的老家附近發(fā)生了大地震。他匆忙掛斷電話，說(shuō)要打回去看看自己的父母是否平安。

In 2008 it was unusual for breaking news to arrive via your phone. Facebook and Twitter werealready blocked to most Chinese internet users. Weibo, which has been called the Chineseversion of Twitter, did not yet exist. Neither did WeChat — now China’s most widely used socialmedia platform and the one on which I heard about last week’s tragedy in Tianjin. It would notbe launched for more than two years.

2008年時(shí)，通過(guò)手機(jī)收到突發(fā)資訊還不常見(jiàn)。大多數(shù)中國(guó)網(wǎng)民已經(jīng)無(wú)法使用Facebook和Twitter。被稱(chēng)為中國(guó)版Twitter的微博(Weibo)還未誕生，也沒(méi)有微信(WeChat)——兩年多后微信才問(wèn)世，如今已是中國(guó)使用最廣的社交媒體平臺(tái)。也正是通過(guò)微信，我得知了上周發(fā)生在天津的慘劇。

A week after my friend’s distraught call, I went to Sichuan with a group of fellow reporters toreport on the aftermath of the earthquake. The closer I got to the reality of the disaster, themore distant I was from information about it: we were on the move constantly with no radioand no newspapers; my mobile phone was disconnected quite often due to bad reception.

接到朋友焦慮不安的電話一周后，我和一群記者同行趕赴四川，報(bào)道震后災(zāi)情。我越接近災(zāi)難現(xiàn)場(chǎng)，就離這場(chǎng)災(zāi)難的信息越遠(yuǎn)：我們一路奔波，聽(tīng)不到廣播，也沒(méi)有報(bào)紙;由于信號(hào)不好，我的手機(jī)經(jīng)常連不上網(wǎng)絡(luò)。

I had the chance to talk to survivors, shed tears with them, and we faced the fear ofaftershocks, flood and contamination together. We were all scared. But at least we knew whatwas happening — unlike many farther away, who relied on what second-hand information theycould obtain.

我抓住機(jī)會(huì)與幸存者交談，跟他們一起流淚，我們共同面對(duì)余震、洪水及污染所帶來(lái)的恐懼。我們都很害怕，但至少我們知道這里發(fā)生了什么——不像外面的人，只能依賴(lài)他們能夠得到的一些二手信息。

No one had to rely on such reports last week. Still on the bus in Beijing, I sent an instantmessage to my friend. “A disaster, she replied, “like the end of the world. Fortunately myparents were living far enough away, so they are OK.

上周的爆炸發(fā)生后，人們不必再依賴(lài)此類(lèi)報(bào)道。還在北京公交車(chē)上時(shí)，我給朋友發(fā)了一條信息。“一場(chǎng)災(zāi)難，她回復(fù)說(shuō)，“像世界末日。幸虧我父母住得足夠遠(yuǎn)，所以他們沒(méi)事。

You did not have to know someone in the stricken city to know what was going on. Mysmartphone buzzed with all sorts of information: pictures of the blast site, apparently taken bya drone; video footage of the shock wave; logs written by reporters on the scene.

你不必認(rèn)識(shí)受災(zāi)城市的人就可以獲悉那里發(fā)生了什么。我的智能手機(jī)不停地收到各種信息：爆炸現(xiàn)場(chǎng)的照片(顯然是由無(wú)人機(jī)拍攝);爆炸沖擊波的視頻;現(xiàn)場(chǎng)記者所寫(xiě)的日志。

A photographer with the nickname X-ceanido uploaded images to WeChat after spendingThursday in the ruins. Within 24 hours these cruelly graphic pictures, accompanied by a diary-style report, had been viewed 100,000 times and attracted more than 2,000 comments. Theywere deleted, probably by internet censors, only to pop up again every time they were takendown.

一位網(wǎng)名為X-ceanido的攝影師上周四在廢墟中忙碌了一天，隨后他將所拍照片上傳到微信。24小時(shí)內(nèi)，這些慘烈的圖片伴隨著一篇日記風(fēng)格的報(bào)道已經(jīng)被閱讀了10萬(wàn)次，吸引了2000多條評(píng)論。這些照片被刪除了(很可能是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)審查者所為)，但每次它們被撤下后都會(huì)很快再次出現(xiàn)。

At home that evening I tuned my television to a Tianjin station and steeled myself for morehorrifying footage. What I saw shocked me for a different reason: the channel wasbroadcasting a Korean television drama. There was nothing about the explosions. Eventuallythe schlocky romance was turned off and some newsreaders came on, reading carefully writtenstatements from a teleprompter. The city authorities held press conferences, each one as briefas possible — although some of them ended awkwardly, with critical questions leftunanswered, prompting more criticism online.

那天晚上回家后，我打開(kāi)電視，調(diào)到天津一電視臺(tái)，并做好了心理準(zhǔn)備，以為自己會(huì)看到更多恐怖鏡頭。我確實(shí)看到了令自己震驚的一幕，但不是因?yàn)榭植赖漠?huà)面，而是因?yàn)樵撆_(tái)居然在播放韓國(guó)電視劇。沒(méi)有關(guān)于爆炸的報(bào)道。最終，蹩腳的電視劇被停掉，資訊播報(bào)員出來(lái)了，小心翼翼地宣讀著臺(tái)詞提示器上的書(shū)面聲明。天津市政府舉行了多場(chǎng)資訊發(fā)布會(huì)，每一場(chǎng)都盡可能地簡(jiǎn)短——有些發(fā)布會(huì)尷尬收?qǐng)觯P(guān)鍵問(wèn)題沒(méi)有得到回答，在網(wǎng)絡(luò)上引發(fā)了更多批評(píng)之聲。

While information is now easier to come by, hard facts are not. The fragmented sources onsocial media are bewildering; some offer solid reporting, but others can be subjective andinaccurate. It is difficult to tell which are which. Advanced technology has provided an escapefrom the censorship. But we are at risk of replacing silence with indecipherable noise. It issometimes difficult to believe anything unless you see it with your own eyes or hear it fromsomeone you trust.

雖然如今人們可以更容易地獲取信息，但得知真相并不容易。社交媒體上分散的信息來(lái)源讓人眼花繚亂;有些提供扎實(shí)可靠的報(bào)道，還有些可能是出于主觀想法的，或者是不準(zhǔn)確的。很難分辨這些信息的真假。先進(jìn)的技術(shù)提供了逃避審查的方法。但我們面臨一種危險(xiǎn)：沉默被打破時(shí)，取而代之的是各種難以分辨的嘈雜聲。有時(shí)候很難相信任何信息，除非親眼見(jiàn)到或者從信任的人那里聽(tīng)到。

And silence has a way of coming back. Three days after the explosions, some popular postsseemed to have been deleted. A Weibo message recording the explosion, which had beenposted by a nearby resident on the evening it happened, had somehow disappeared into thinair. The authorities have arrested some people who posted online, accusing them of“scamming. Hundreds of social media accounts have been shut down on the grounds thatthey had been used for “spreading rumour.

而且，沉默會(huì)以自己的方式回歸。爆炸發(fā)生三天后，一些人氣很旺的帖子似乎已被刪除。一條爆炸現(xiàn)場(chǎng)附近居民當(dāng)晚所發(fā)的、記錄爆炸過(guò)程的微博已經(jīng)消失得無(wú)影無(wú)蹤。當(dāng)局逮捕了一些在網(wǎng)上發(fā)帖的網(wǎng)民，指控他們“欺詐。數(shù)百個(gè)社交媒體賬戶(hù)被封殺，理由是它們被用于“散布謠言。

On Monday night, nearly five days after the blasts, official television was reporting that least 114people had died and 70 were missing. Whether any local officials were expected to be heldresponsible, it did not say. As to why dangerous chemicals were being stored only hundreds ofmetres from residential buildings where tens of thousands of people live, there was nodefinitive official answer.

截至周一晚，在爆炸發(fā)生近五天后，官方電視臺(tái)報(bào)道，至少有114人死亡，70人失蹤。報(bào)道中未提及是否有任何當(dāng)?shù)毓賳T將對(duì)此次事故負(fù)責(zé)。至于為什么危險(xiǎn)化學(xué)品被存儲(chǔ)在距離有數(shù)萬(wàn)人口的居民點(diǎn)只有幾百米的地方，還沒(méi)有明確權(quán)威的官方答復(fù)。