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“用脚投票”拯救Twitter

不知从什么时候开始,Twitter变成了一个充满仇恨言论的平台,反犹主义、厌女症、仇穆的言论层出不穷,但Twitter对此置之不理,任其兴风作浪。我们是时候想想办法来解决这种问题了。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识:

hassle ['hæsl] vt. 与…争辩,不断骚扰

repellent [rɪ'pelənt] adj. 排斥的

vicious ['vɪʃəs] adj. 恶毒的,恶意的

misogyny [məˈsäjənē] n. 厌女症

bigotry ['bɪgətri] n. 固执,顽固

impregnable [ɪm'pregnəbl] adj. 无法攻取的

aggregate ['ægrɪgət] v. 聚集,集合

阅读马上开始,建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用的时间,对照下方的参考值就可以评估出您的英文阅读水平。

Become a Qwitter to salvage Twitter (712 words)

By ROBERT SHRIMSLEY

Picture the scene. You walk into a café, a favoured haunt where you often bump into people you know. Perhaps it is on your way to work and where you get your morning coffee and a Danish. It has a great selection of homemade pastries or bacon sandwiches — whatever it is that gets you motoring in the morning.

The café has always attracted a mix of people but you've started to notice a rougher crowD.There's a bit of low grade racial abuse and the women get hassled a bit. A table in the corner is always taken by a few guys mouthing off hardline political views — but it's nothing you wouldn't hear in a taxi.

One day you realise it has become a hang-out for people keen to share their repellent views. The abuse is targeted and vicious. You say something to the manager but he shrugs. Business is business and they are buying cooked breakfasts. “Just ignore them,” he says.

All of which brings me to Twitter. There is so much about it that I love beyond its narcissistic pleasures. Twitter is where I get my coffee and Danish and find out what is going on.

But increasingly I'm aware that the guys at the corner table now occupy half the café. I am most sensitive to the anti-Semitism — the controlling Jewish banker tropes are just everywhere — but the Islamophobia and misogyny is at least as awful.

This week Twitter announced a tightening of its rules — on the day it was savaged by MPs over its failure to remove the most vile posts. On the same day I reported two hateful anti-Semitic posts. Twitter replied that it did not “violate its rules on abusive behaviour”. It suggested I make use of its tools to block, mute and filter.

I could, of course, do this. I could mute and block and filter but this is to make Twitter's problems mine. And Twitter's problems are not mine; they are everyone's. Twitter has become a cancerous cell in society, a place where the most appalling hatred is aired, shared, normalised and cultivateD.A place for bigotry, intimidation and conspiracy theorists, a place where Islamophobic hate can reach and be recirculated by a president; and where decency and restraint is dismissed as snowflakery. So yes, I could mute and block and filter, but then I could go back to my café with a blindfold and earphones.

Even if I were prepared to mute and block, there is still no avoiding the toxic ocean. Decent people share the hate-posts to expose them seemingly unconcerned that this is what the bigots want. On Thursday, a Labour MP tweeted out a nauseating, racist Christmas card sent to Jeremy Corbyn by the British National party. His motives were benign, but when the BNP sends a card to the Labour party leader it does so to get a reaction.

Twitter's response so far has been forced by political pressure and amounts to little more than a cull of some high-profile offenders. It needs users to vote with their feet.

So, I have resolved to step back, to become a Qwitter. It isn't because I cannot cope but because when a company puts the bigots' needs before mine, it loses my business.

The platform — and its advertisers — need to see users disengaging. I am under no illusions. Twitter will cope without me. But if users — especially those with far higher profiles than me — take a stand then Twitter will face its own Gresham's law. The bad will have driven out the good and Twitter will find that advertisers are less keen on its audience profile dominated by angry bigots and political activists. Silicon Valley is littered with the corpses of once impregnable sites.

But how does an addict do this? How does one become a Qwitter without impoverishing oneself. There are sites that aggregate Twitter, but they pay for access to its feeds. The answer, I think, is to become a non-participant. I know myself well enough to believe I will not stop visiting outright, but I can stop tweeting, become an inactive user.

For many addicts this is too high a price to pay, but in the war with the bigots it is them or us. The challenge is to force Twitter to choose.

请根据你所读到的文章内容,完成以下自测题目:

1.Why does the author mention the café in the first three paragraphs ?

A.To give an example of targeted and vicious abuse on Twitter.

B.To share his opinion on the regulation of internet abuse.

C.To explain why people like to express their views on Twitter.

D.To indicate how Twitter has become a place for abusive message.

答案 (1)

2.Which of the following statements about Twitter's problems is true?

A.Twitter's problems are caused by the lack of rules about abusive behaviour.

B.Twitter's problems will disappear if we use its tools to block hateful posts.

C.Twitter's tools to block hateful posts cannot help to solve its problems.

D.Twitter's response to its problems has irritated some high-profile offenders.

答案 (2)

3.What does the author mean by saying “it needs users to vote with their feet”?

A.Twitter needs to see users disengaging.

B.He has decide not to visit Twitter any longer.

C.Twitter needs to set up its Gresham's law.

D.Bad users on Twitter has driven out the good.

答案 (3)

4.What does the author intend to do by stopping tweeting?

A.To protect Twitter's users from hateful posts and abusive behaviour.

B.To drive Twitter into bankruptcy by calling on people to boycott it.

C.To declare a war between Twitter and its high-profile users.

D.To ask Twitter to take more effective measures to cope with bigots.

答案 (4)


(1) 答案:D.To indicate how Twitter has become a place for abusive message.解释:作者在前三段用咖啡店的例子来说明Twitter是怎样被仇恨言论所占据的。

(2) 答案:C.Twitter's tools to block hateful posts cannot help to solve its problems.解释:我可以用Twitter的工具来阻止并过滤这些信息,但我无法避开整片有毒的海洋。

(3) 答案:A.Twitter needs to see users disengaging.解释:Twitter和它的广告商需要用户用脚投票。如果用户——尤其是高级用户——也采取这样的方式,Twitter将面临自己的格雷沙姆法则。

(4) 答案:D.To ask Twitter to take more effective measures to cope with bigots.解释:对于许多对Twitter上瘾的人来说,这么做的代价太过高昂,但这是一场你死我活的战争,我们要迫使Twitter做出选择。 SXC5l81DbsBxh9yhh5wLPOZkDSuC2IXpK2giIh3qn1Z57Bqd4HjQrprtdQHJcJe5

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