In the early days of Twitter, it was like a place of radical de-shaming. People would admit shameful secrets about themselves, and other people would say, "Oh my God, I'm exactly the same." Voiceless people realized that they had a voice, and it was powerful and eloquent. If a newspaper ran some racist or homophobic column, we realized we could do something about it. We could get them. We could hit them with a weapon that we understood but they didn't -- a social media shaming. Advertisers would withdraw their advertising. When powerful people misused their privilege, we were going to get them. This was like the democratization of justice. Hierarchies were being leveled out. We were going to do things better.
在「推特」早先的日子裡 它像是一個徹底擺脫羞愧的地方, 大家會招認有關自己丟臉的小祕密, 而其他人會說「我的天! 我完全一模一樣耶!」, 講話沒人在意者瞭解了 他們有個聲音能被聽到, 而且這聲音力量十足又深得人心, 如果有報紙刊登某些種族主義 或是憎惡同性戀的專欄, 我們知道我們可以做點事情、 我們可以逮住他們、 我們可以用我們比他們瞭解的武器來攻擊他們 -社群媒體霸凌。 廣告主會撤走廣告。 當有力人士濫用其權勢 我們將會逮住他們, 這就像是民主式的正義, 階級被夷平了, 我們將會把事情做的更棒。
Soon after that, a disgraced pop science writer called Jonah Lehrer -- he'd been caught plagiarizing and faking quotes, and he was drenched in shame and regret, he told me. And he had the opportunity to publicly apologize at a foundation lunch. This was going to be the most important speech of his life. Maybe it would win him some salvation. He knew before he arrived that the foundation was going to be live-streaming his event, but what he didn't know until he turned up, was that they'd erected a giant screen Twitter feed right next to his head. (Laughter) Another one in a monitor screen in his eye line.
沒多久,一名顏面盡失的流行科學寫手 喬納. 雷爾 他被抓到抄襲以及竄改引用資料, 他跟我說他滿腹羞愧與懊悔; 而他有機會, 在一個午餐大會上公開道歉, 這將會是他這輩子最重要的發言, 或許這會為他帶來一些救贖。 早在他抵達前他已經知道 該大會打算線上直播他的道歉事件, 不過直到他抵達前他所不知道的事, 是他們已經在他的頭旁邊豎立起 一個即時推特直播的大螢幕; (笑聲) 另一個螢幕就在他眼前。
I don't think the foundation did this because they were monstrous. I think they were clueless: I think this was a unique moment when the beautiful naivety of Twitter was hitting the increasingly horrific reality.
我不認為大會這麼做是因為它們邪惡, 我認為他們純粹是搞不清楚狀況; 我認為那是一個特別的時刻, 當推特美好的純真 正成為越來越恐怖的現實。
And here were some of the Tweets that were cascading into his eye line, as he was trying to apologize:
當他想要道歉時, 這裡是湧入他眼簾的 某些推特推文 -
"Jonah Lehrer, boring us into forgiving him." (Laughter)
「喬納. 雷爾想煩我們 煩到饒過他呢。」 (笑聲)
And, "Jonah Lehrer has not proven that he is capable of feeling shame."
以及「喬納. 雷爾尚無法證明 他有羞恥心」,
That one must have been written by the best psychiatrist ever, to know that about such a tiny figure behind a lectern.
那則推文必定是至今以來最棒的 精神科醫師所寫的, 才能看到人所不能見之事;
And, "Jonah Lehrer is just a frigging sociopath."
還有「喬納. 雷爾不過就是個 該死的神經病!」,
That last word is a very human thing to do, to dehumanize the people we hurt. It's because we want to destroy people but not feel bad about it. Imagine if this was an actual court, and the accused was in the dark, begging for another chance, and the jury was yelling out, "Bored! Sociopath!" (Laughter)
最後的用詞倒是非常人性, 人們往往先剝奪我們傷害對象的人性, 我們希望在摧毀他人的同時, 不要有什麼不好的感覺。 試想如果這是真實的法庭, 遭指控者非常惆悵、 冀求得到另一次機會, 而法官喝斥出:「煩死了! 神經病!」 (笑聲)
You know, when we watch courtroom dramas, we tend to identify with the kindhearted defense attorney, but give us the power, and we become like hanging judges.
你們也知道當我們在觀賞法庭劇時 我們會認同好心腸的辯護律師, 不過給我們權力之後 我們變得喜歡奪人性命的法官。
Power shifts fast. We were getting Jonah because he was perceived to have misused his privilege, but Jonah was on the floor then, and we were still kicking, and congratulating ourselves for punching up. And it began to feel weird and empty when there wasn't a powerful person who had misused their privilege that we could get. A day without a shaming began to feel like a day picking fingernails and treading water.
權力移轉良快, 我們逮到喬納是因為 他被察覺濫用他的權勢, 不過後來他被整倒在地了 我們仍然不停攻擊, 而且為了動手、出口而恭維自己。 當沒了我們可以逮住的 濫用權勢之有力人士, 我們湧起一種怪異的空虛。 一天沒有羞辱人開始覺得 像是百般無聊的一天。
Let me tell you a story. It's about a woman called Justine Sacco. She was a PR woman from New York with 170 Twitter followers, and she'd Tweet little acerbic jokes to them, like this one on a plane from New York to London: [Weird German Dude: You're in first class. It's 2014. Get some deodorant." -Inner monologue as inhale BO. Thank god for pharmaceuticals.] So Justine chuckled to herself, and pressed send, and got no replies, and felt that sad feeling that we all feel when the Internet doesn't congratulate us for being funny. (Laughter) Black silence when the Internet doesn't talk back. And then she got to Heathrow, and she had a little time to spare before her final leg, so she thought up another funny little acerbic joke:
讓我來告訴你們一個故事, 是有關於一位叫做 「賈絲汀.薩科」的女人, 她是位來自紐約的公關, 有 170 名推特追隨者, 她不時撰寫一些尖酸的短文給他們。 像是這個在要從紐約到倫敦的 飛機上所「推」出的玩笑: [當吸到體臭味時 內心之獨白 - 怪異的德國佬,你就在頭等艙裡, 現在是 2014 年了,用點除臭劑吧! 感謝上帝給了我們製藥廠!] 所以賈絲汀暗自竊笑並且按下送出, 但都沒有收到回應, 而感受到當網路上沒有 恭維我們表現風趣時 我們都會感受到的那種難過的感覺, (笑聲) 當網路上沒有人回話就是 毫無希望的靜寂。 後來她到了希斯洛機場, 在她最後一段飛航行程前 她有些許時間可以空出來,所以她想出 另一個好笑、有點尖酸的玩笑話:
[Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!]
[要去非洲了,希望我不會得愛滋病! 耍你的啦,我是白人!]。
And she chuckled to herself, pressed send, got on the plane, got no replies, turned off her phone, fell asleep, woke up 11 hours later, turned on her phone while the plane was taxiing on the runway, and straightaway there was a message from somebody that she hadn't spoken to since high school, that said, "I am so sorry to see what's happening to you." And then another message from a best friend, "You need to call me right now. You are the worldwide number one trending topic on Twitter." (Laughter)
然後她暗自竊笑、按下送出, 沒有人回覆,上了飛機, 關掉手機睡著了; 十一個鐘頭後醒過來了, 當飛機正要停在跑道上時打開了手機, 隨即有個來自她從高中後 就沒再說過話的某人所送出的訊息, 寫道:「我是如此遺憾的看到 正發生在妳身上的事情」, 之後另一個來自最要好的朋友的訊息: 「你馬上得打個電話給我! 妳是推特上頭全世界 第一名的熱門話題」。 (笑聲)
What had happened is that one of her 170 followers had sent the Tweet to a Gawker journalist, and he retweeted it to his 15,000 followers: [And now, a funny holiday joke from IAC's PR boss] And then it was like a bolt of lightning. A few weeks later, I talked to the Gawker journalist. I emailed him and asked him how it felt, and he said, "It felt delicious." And then he said, "But I'm sure she's fine."
所發生之事就是她 170 位追隨者中的 一位送出該推文給 Gawker 的記者, 而他再「推」給他一萬五千名的追隨者 [一個來自 ICA 公關總監 不得體的節慶笑話], 之後就像一道閃電般迅速蔓延開了。 幾個星期之後我跟該名記者談過, 我寄電子郵件給他詢問他有什麼感覺, 他說:「這感覺太愉悅了!」, 接著又說:「不過我肯定她好好的」;
But she wasn't fine, because while she slept, Twitter took control of her life and dismantled it piece by piece. First there were the philanthropists: [If @JustineSacco's unfortunate words ... bother you, join me in supporting @CARE's work in Africa.] [In light of ... disgusting, racist tweet, I'm donating to @care today] Then came the beyond horrified: [... no words for that horribly disgusting racist as fuck tweet from Justine Sacco. I am beyond horrified.]
但是她並不好過, 因為在她睡著時 推特掌控了她的生活、 將其粉碎瓦解。 起先是善心人士 - [如果賈絲汀不當的發文讓你擔心- 和我一起來援助 CARE 在非洲的工作]、 [因為令人做噁、種族主義的推文, 我今天將要捐錢給CARE]。 接著變成感到震驚不已 - [對來自賈絲汀極度令人做噁之 種族主義者的下賤推文我無言以對, 我感到震驚不已]。 有誰那晚在推特上嗎? 只有一些人呀!
Was anybody on Twitter that night? A few of you. Did Justine's joke overwhelm your Twitter feed the way it did mine? It did mine, and I thought what everybody thought that night, which was, "Wow, somebody's screwed! Somebody's life is about to get terrible!" And I sat up in my bed, and I put the pillow behind my head, and then I thought, I'm not entirely sure that joke was intended to be racist. Maybe instead of gleefully flaunting her privilege, she was mocking the gleeful flaunting of privilege. There's a comedy tradition of this, like South Park or Colbert or Randy Newman. Maybe Justine Sacco's crime was not being as good at it as Randy Newman. In fact, when I met Justine a couple of weeks later in a bar, she was just crushed, and I asked her to explain the joke, and she said, "Living in America puts us in a bit of a bubble when it comes to what is going on in the Third World. I was making of fun of that bubble."
賈絲汀的玩笑話有沒有像我的 那樣淹沒掉你的推特時間軸呢? 它就這樣淹沒了我的時間軸; 我想的跟那晚每個人想的一樣, 就是 -「 哇!有人完蛋了、 有人的日子不好過了」。 我在我的床上坐了起來, 把枕頭放到腦後, 我接著在想 - 我不全然肯定那個 玩笑就是想表現出種族優越感, 也許炫燿權勢, 反而是在嘲弄炫燿權勢, 這是一種喜劇傳統 - 像是「南方四賤客」、 「荷伯報告」、蘭迪.紐曼。 也許賈絲汀的罪過就是沒有表現得 像蘭迪.紐曼一樣好, 事實上當我幾個禮拜後與賈絲汀 在一間酒吧會面時她就是很受傷的, 我請她為那個笑話做出解釋, 她說道:「當提到正發生在 第三世界的事情時, 活在美國讓我們置身於 些微榮景的泡沫之中, 我只是取笑那個泡沫罷了。」
You know, another woman on Twitter that night, a New Statesman writer Helen Lewis, she reviewed my book on public shaming and wrote that she Tweeted that night, "I'm not sure that her joke was intended to be racist," and she said straightaway she got a fury of Tweets saying, "Well, you're just a privileged bitch, too." And so to her shame, she wrote, she shut up and watched as Justine's life got torn apart.
知道嗎?那晚另一個在推特上的女人 - 「新政治家」的撰稿人海倫.路易斯, 她校對了我在公開羞辱議題上的書, 寫到她那晚的推文: 「我不確定她的玩笑話 是想表現出種族主義」, 她說馬上她就收到盛怒的推文寫道: 「很好!妳也不過是個 享有權勢的賤人罷了!」, 她羞愧地回應, 她封口了、看著賈絲汀的人生被摧毀掉。
It started to get darker: [Everyone go report this cunt @JustineSacco] Then came the calls for her to be fired. [Good luck with the job hunt in the new year. #GettingFired] Thousands of people around the world decided it was their duty to get her fired. [@JustineSacco last tweet of your career. #SorryNotSorry Corporations got involved, hoping to sell their products on the back of Justine's annihilation: [Next time you plan to tweet something stupid before you take off, make sure you are getting on a @Gogo flight!] (Laughter)
開始變得更威脅式的 - 「大家來舉發賈絲汀這個討厭鬼吧!」, 後來變成訴求她被解職 - 「祝新的一年找工作順利 #被人開除吧!」 全世界各地好幾千人打定主意 讓她被開除是他們的職責, [賈絲汀為你的職涯最後推個文吧! #很遺憾並不感到遺憾] 公司行號也來湊熱鬧了, 希望在對賈絲汀的抹殺 背後販售她們的產品 - [下次在你打算在起飛前推很白痴的文, 確保好你是上了 Gogo 航空!], (笑聲)
A lot of companies were making good money that night. You know, Justine's name was normally Googled 40 times a month. That month, between December the 20th and the end of December, her name was Googled 1,220,000 times. And one Internet economist told me that that meant that Google made somewhere between 120,000 dollars and 468,000 dollars from Justine's annihilation, whereas those of us doing the actual shaming -- we got nothing. (Laughter) We were like unpaid shaming interns for Google. (Laughter)
許多公司在那晚持續賺進大把鈔票, 知道嗎?賈絲汀的名字通常 一個月被人 Google 了 40 次, 那一個月從十二月二十幾號到月底之間 她的名字被 Google 搜尋了122 萬次, 而一位網路經濟專家告訴我 那代表了 Google 從賈絲汀的抹殺中賺進了十二萬到 四十六萬八千美元之間的某個數額, 在這邊那些做出實際羞辱的我們 什麼東西也沒拿到, (笑聲) 我們對 Google 而言就像是 免費的羞辱實習生。 (笑聲)
And then came the trolls: [I'm actually kind of hoping Justine Sacco gets aids? lol] Somebody else on that wrote, "Somebody HIV-positive should rape this bitch and then we'll find out if her skin color protects her from AIDS." And that person got a free pass. Nobody went after that person. We were all so excited about destroying Justine, and our shaming brains are so simple-minded, that we couldn't also handle destroying somebody who was inappropriately destroying Justine. Justine was really uniting a lot of disparate groups that night, from philanthropists to "rape the bitch." [@JustineSacco I hope you get fired! You demented bitch... Just let the world know you're planning to ride bare back while in Africa.]
接著出現了惹人生氣的網路留言 - [我確實有點希望賈絲汀得愛滋病], 另外的某人在那發言下面寫道: 「帶有 HIV 病毒的人應該強姦這個婊子, 然後我們就會知道 是否她的膚色能保護她不得愛滋病」, 而那個人取得特許通行權, 沒人去追查出那個人, 我們都是如此興高采烈的 要毀掉賈絲汀, 以及我們可笑的腦袋是如此少根筋, 我們不能一併處理來摧毀過分地 摧毀賈絲汀的某人。 賈絲汀在那晚確實團結了 許許多多全然不同的團體 - 從慈善家到「強姦這賤人」, [賈絲汀我盼望你被革職! 你這發狂的賤人, 就這麼讓世界知道你打算要去 非洲睡赤裸的黑人!]。
Women always have it worse than men. When a man gets shamed, it's, "I'm going to get you fired." When a woman gets shamed, it's, "I'm going to get you fired and raped and cut out your uterus."
女人總是有比男人更不堪的批評, 當一個男人被羞辱了, 那是「我會讓你被革職!」; 當一個女人被羞辱了, 那是「我會讓你被革職、 被強姦、割掉你的子宮!」;
And then Justine's employers got involved: [IAC on @JustineSacco tweet: This is an outrageous, offensive comment. Employee in question currently unreachable on an intl flight.] And that's when the anger turned to excitement: [All I want for Christmas is to see @JustineSacco's face when her plane lands and she checks her inbox/voicemail. #fired] [Oh man, @justinesacco is going to have the most painful phone-turning-on moment ever when her plane lands.] [We are about to watch this @JustineSacco bitch get fired. In REAL time. Before she even KNOWS she's getting fired.] What we had was a delightful narrative arc. We knew something that Justine didn't. Can you think of anything less judicial than this? Justine was asleep on a plane and unable to explain herself, and her inability was a huge part of the hilarity. On Twitter that night, we were like toddlers crawling towards a gun. Somebody worked out exactly which plane she was on, so they linked to a flight tracker website. [British Airways Flight 43 On-time - arrives in 1 hour 34 minutes] A hashtag began trending worldwide: # hasJustineLandedYet? [It is kinda wild to see someone self-destruct without them even being aware of it. #hasJustineLandedYet] [Seriously. I just want to go home to go to bed, but everyone at the bar is SO into #HasJustineLandedYet. Can't look away. Can't leave.] [#HasJustineLandedYet may be the best thing to happen to my Friday night.] [Is no one in Cape Town going to the airport to tweet her arrival? Come on, twitter! I'd like pictures] And guess what? Yes there was. [@JustineSacco HAS in fact landed at Cape Town international. And if you want to know what it looks like to discover that you've just been torn to shreds because of a misconstrued liberal joke, not by trolls, but by nice people like us, this is what it looks like: [... She's decided to wear sunnies as a disguise.]
然後賈絲汀的雇主也淌進這渾水中了 - [ IAC 集團在賈絲汀的推特上推文: 這是個讓人火大、令人不快的言論, 有爭議的員工最近出航國外無法洽找]。 而這是當憤怒變得激憤 - [對聖誕節而言我所想要的一切 , 就是看到當賈絲汀的飛機落地 她檢視收信匣、 語音留言時的表情#被開除了]、 [哎!老兄,當飛機落地了 賈絲汀即將要有 至今為止最痛苦的接電話時間]、 [我們差不多要即時看到 賤人賈絲汀被開除了, 早於甚至她清楚她正要被開除]。 我們有的是讓人開心的故事轉折, 我們知道賈絲汀所不知道的一些事情, 你能想到任何比這個還不公平的事情嗎? 賈絲汀在飛機上睡著了而且 沒有辦法為自己解釋, 而且她的無能為力 是這場鬧劇很大的一部分, 那晚在推特上我們像是走路不穩的 小孩正往著槍枝爬過去。 有人想出到底她是在哪一架飛機上頭, 所以他們連結上一個航班追蹤的網站, [英國航空 43 航班「準點」, 1 小時 34 分鐘內抵達] 一個主題標籤開始橫掃全世界: #賈絲汀落地了沒呀? [這有點瘋狂,看到某人自我毀滅, 他們卻壓根不曉得這件事 #賈絲汀落地了沒呀?]、 [不騙你我只是想回家、爬上床, 但是每個在酒吧的人是如此的投入在 #賈絲汀落地了沒呀? 沒辦法視若無睹、沒辦法脫身]、 [#賈絲汀落地了沒呀?可能是我在 禮拜五晚上發生過最棒的事情吧!]、 [在開普敦沒人打算去機場 推文她的抵達嗎? 推特快點!我想要照片阿]。 你猜怎麼著了,是的有人推文了! [賈絲汀事實上已經降落在 開普敦國際機場了,」 如果你想知道那看起來怎樣 - 發現你正因為被誤解了沒分寸的 笑話而受到強力抨擊, 那不是妖魔鬼怪所為, 而是像我們一樣的好人做的, 這就是看起來的樣子 - 「她決定用墨鏡來掩藏自己」
So why did we do it? I think some people were genuinely upset, but I think for other people, it's because Twitter is basically a mutual approval machine. We surround ourselves with people who feel the same way we do, and we approve each other, and that's a really good feeling. And if somebody gets in the way, we screen them out. And do you know what that's the opposite of? It's the opposite of democracy. We wanted to show that we cared about people dying of AIDS in Africa. Our desire to be seen to be compassionate is what led us to commit this profoundly un-compassionate act. As Meghan O'Gieblyn wrote in the Boston Review, "This isn't social justice. It's a cathartic alternative."
那麼為什麼我們要這麼做呢? 我認為有些人真的非常生氣, 但是我想對其他人來說, 因為推特基本上是一個 共同認可的機器, 我們讓與我們感覺一致的 人圍繞著自己, 而我們認可了彼此, 那確實是個很好的感覺; 而要是有人礙事我們就汰除掉他們, 你知道這是什麼東西的相反嗎? 那是民主的相反。 我們希望表達我們關心 在非洲正因愛滋病死去的眾人, 我們想讓人當成是富有愛心的欲望 就是導致我們進行 這個極度一點愛心都沒有的行動。 如同梅根.歐基布林在 「波士頓評論」裡寫道: 「這並不是社會公義, 這是宣洩情感的其他方式」。
For the past three years, I've been going around the world meeting people like Justine Sacco -- and believe me, there's a lot of people like Justine Sacco. There's more every day. And we want to think they're fine, but they're not fine. The people I met were mangled. They talked to me about depression, and anxiety and insomnia and suicidal thoughts. One woman I talked to, who also told a joke that landed badly, she stayed home for a year and a half. Before that, she worked with adults with learning difficulties, and was apparently really good at her job.
過去三年來我跑遍世界與 像賈絲汀遭遇的人碰面, 相信我有著極多人就像賈絲汀這樣, 每一天都有更多; 我們想認為他們沒事, 但是他們並非沒事, 我遇見的人都被毀了, 他們跟我談了關於抑鬱、 焦慮、失眠以及自殺的念頭。 有個和我說過話的女人 也講了個下場悽慘的笑話, 一年半的時間她走不出家門外, 在那之前她陪著 有學習障礙的成年人工作, 而且似乎在工作上確實表現很好。
Justine was fired, of course, because social media demanded it. But it was worse than that. She was losing herself. She was waking up in the middle of the night, forgetting who she was. She was got because she was perceived to have misused her privilege. And of course, that's a much better thing to get people for than the things we used to get people for, like having children out of wedlock. But the phrase "misuse of privilege" is becoming a free pass to tear apart pretty much anybody we choose to. It's becoming a devalued term, and it's making us lose our capacity for empathy and for distinguishing between serious and unserious transgressions.
當然賈絲汀就被開除了, 因為是社交媒體強烈要求的, 但是事情卻更糟了, 賈絲汀迷失了自己, 她不斷在半夜醒過來還忘了自己是誰。 她被逮到是因為她被當成濫用權勢, 而且當然了比起我們以前 用來逮人的事由, 像是使小孩子遠離婚姻枷鎖, 這是用來逮人強上許多的事由; 不過濫用權勢這個詞 正要變成一張特許通行證, 來摧毀極多我們挑出的任何人, 它正變成了一個貶低的措辭, 它正使得我們失去同情心的本能, 以及分辨出界於嚴重 與不嚴重之間的踰矩。
Justine had 170 Twitter followers, and so to make it work, she had to be fictionalized. Word got around that she was the daughter the mining billionaire Desmond Sacco. [Let us not be fooled by #JustineSacco her father is a SA mining billionaire. She's not sorry. And neither is her father.] I thought that was true about Justine, until I met her at a bar, and I asked her about her billionaire father, and she said, "My father sells carpets."
賈絲汀有 170 名推特追隨者, 所以要讓行動成功的話 她得被虛構出故事, 外傳她是礦業億萬富豪 德斯蒙.薩科的女兒 - [我們不要被賈絲汀耍了, 她父親是南非礦業的億萬富豪, 她並不遺憾,她老爸也一樣]。 我以為關於賈絲汀那是真的, 等到我在一間酒吧跟她碰面了, 我問了她有關她億萬富豪的父親, 而她說:「我父親是賣地毯的!」。
And I think back on the early days of Twitter, when people would admit shameful secrets about themselves, and other people would say, "Oh my God, I'm exactly the same." These days, the hunt is on for people's shameful secrets. You can lead a good, ethical life, but some bad phraseology in a Tweet can overwhelm it all, become a clue to your secret inner evil.
而我回想起在推特早期的日子裡, 當有人承認關於自己丟臉的秘事時, 其他人會說:「我的天呀! 我完全一模一樣耶!」; 這些日子以來搜尋眾人 丟臉的秘事是不停歇的, 你可以過著良好、有道德的生活, 但是一些推特裡的惡劣措辭 可以把它給全部淹蓋掉, 變成一個你暗藏邪惡秘事的線索。
Maybe there's two types of people in the world: those people who favor humans over ideology, and those people who favor ideology over humans. I favor humans over ideology, but right now, the ideologues are winning, and they're creating a stage for constant artificial high dramas where everybody's either a magnificent hero or a sickening villain, even though we know that's not true about our fellow humans. What's true is that we are clever and stupid; what's true is that we're grey areas. The great thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people, but we're now creating a surveillance society, where the smartest way to survive is to go back to being voiceless.
也許世界上有著兩種類型的人 - 喜愛人遠過於意識形態的那些人 和喜愛意識形態遠過於人的那些人, 我喜愛人多過於意識形態; 不過現在意識形態奉行者是贏家, 而且他們正在創造一個舞台 給一成不變的虛假大戲, 在那裡每個人可能是令人景仰的英雄, 或是讓人厭惡的惡棍, 即便如此我們知道有關於我們的 人類同伴那不是真實的。 事實是我們是聰明又愚笨的, 事實是我們在灰色地帶。 有關社交媒體最棒的事情 是它如何給了說話沒人在意者 能被聽見的聲音, 但是我們現在正在 創造一個監控式社會, 在那裡要活下去最聰明的辦法就是 回去做沒有聲音的人。
Let's not do that.
我們千萬不要那樣做!
Thank you.
謝謝大家!
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Bruno Giussani: Thank you, Jon.
布魯諾.裘薩尼:辛苦你了!
Jon Ronson: Thanks, Bruno.
強.朗森:謝謝!
BG: Don't go away. What strikes me about Justine's story is also the fact that if you Google her name today, this story covers the first 100 pages of Google results -- there is nothing else about her. In your book, you mention another story of another victim who actually got taken on by a reputation management firm, and by creating blogs and posting nice, innocuous stories about her love for cats and holidays and stuff, managed to get the story off the first couple pages of Google results, but it didn't last long. A couple of weeks later, they started creeping back up to the top result. Is this a totally lost battle?
裘薩尼:別走開喔, 關於賈絲汀的故事震撼到我的是 假如你今天去谷歌搜尋她的名字, 也是這個故事佔滿了前 100 頁的 搜尋成果清單的事實, 再沒有其他任何事情是和她相關的。 在你的書裡面你提到 另一個受害人的故事, 此人實際上是被一間 聲譽管理顧問公司所雇用, 透過開創部落格和張貼 有關她對貓咪的愛、 節慶以及餡料 良好、無敗害的文章, 企圖讓該故事消失在前幾頁的谷歌搜尋 成果清單上,不過並沒維持多久, 幾個禮拜後它們又上升竄回 最上方的搜尋結果, 這是一場徹底輸了的戰爭嗎?
Jon Ronson: You know, I think the very best thing we can do, if you see a kind of unfair or an ambiguous shaming, is to speak up, because I think the worst thing that happened to Justine was that nobody supported her -- like, everyone was against her, and that is profoundly traumatizing, to be told by tens of thousands of people that you need to get out. But if a shaming happens and there's a babble of voices, like in a democracy, where people are discussing it, I think that's much less damaging. So I think that's the way forward, but it's hard, because if you do stand up for somebody, it's incredibly unpleasant.
朗森:要是你看見了一種不公平 或是不甚明確的霸凌, 我認為我們最好就是把話說出來。 因為我認為發生在賈絲汀身上 最慘的事情就是沒有人支持她, 就像是每一個人都在抵制她, 那是深深地精神上令人受傷的, 被成千上萬的人要求辭職。 不過要是一件羞辱人的事發生 而有著像在民主國家亂烘烘的聲音, 大家都在討論這件事, 我想那會不傷人得多。 所以我認為是有再進步的地方, 但是不容易做到, 因為要是你支持某人, 這會是極度令人不開心的事。
BG: So let's talk about your experience, because you stood up by writing this book. By the way, it's mandatory reading for everybody, okay? You stood up because the book actually puts the spotlight on shamers. And I assume you didn't only have friendly reactions on Twitter.
裘薩尼:那麼讓我們來談你的經驗吧, 因為你透過寫這本書挺身而出, 順帶一提這對每個人來說 都是指定讀物對吧, 你挺身而出因為本書的確把焦點 放在霸凌者的身上, 而我猜想在推特上你不是 只有友善的回應而已。
JR: It didn't go down that well with some people. (Laughter) I mean, you don't want to just concentrate -- because lots of people understood, and were really nice about the book. But yeah, for 30 years I've been writing stories about abuses of power, and when I say the powerful people over there in the military, or in the pharmaceutical industry, everybody applauds me. As soon as I say, "We are the powerful people abusing our power now," I get people saying, "Well you must be a racist too."
朗森:我和有些人之間 不是很好誘發反應的, (笑聲) 我是指你不想要只專注在 因為很多人都知道了、 而且對本書很滿意。 不過三十年來我已經不斷寫出 有關濫用權力的故事, 而當我說有力人士就就在軍隊裡面、 或是在藥廠行業裡, 每一個人都在讚揚我; 當我一說了:「我們就是有力人士, 現在正在濫用權力!」, 就有人對我說著:「很好!你必定 是一個種族主義者吧!」
BG: So the other night -- yesterday -- we were at dinner, and there were two discussions going on. On one side you were talking with people around the table -- and that was a nice, constructive discussion. On the other, every time you turned to your phone, there is this deluge of insults.
裘薩尼:另一晚上我們在用 晚餐 - 就是昨天啦, 有兩個持續進行的討論, 這一邊你和同桌的人在聊天 而且是個愉快、有建設性的討論; 在另一邊每次你回看手機 都有著大量的謾罵發言。
JR: Yeah. This happened last night. We had like a TED dinner last night. We were chatting and it was lovely and nice, and I decided to check Twitter. Somebody said, "You are a white supremacist." And then I went back and had a nice conversation with somebody, and then I went back to Twitter, somebody said my very existence made the world a worse place. My friend Adam Curtis says that maybe the Internet is like a John Carpenter movie from the 1980s, when eventually everyone will start screaming at each other and shooting each other, and then eventually everybody would flee to somewhere safer, and I'm starting to think of that as a really nice option.
朗森:是啊就發生在昨晚, 我們有個像 TED 大會的晚宴, 我們一直在聊天而且友善又愉快的, 而我決定去查看一下我的推特, 某人說:「你是個白人至上主義者!」。 接著我回到聊天裡而且和某人 有著很愉快的對話, 接著我回到推特上, 有人說我的存在把世界弄成了 一個更糟糕的地方。 我的朋友亞當.科提斯說了 也許網路就像約翰.卡本特 來自八零年代的一部電影, 當最終每個人將會開始 監視彼此、射殺彼此, 之後最終每個人會逃離到 比較安全的某個地方。 我開始在想那確實是個美好的選項!
BG: Jon, thank you. JR: Thank you, Bruno.
布魯諾:謝謝你! 強:謝謝你布魯諾!
(Applause)
(掌聲)