“（當(dāng)權(quán)者）要么有意義但不會(huì)表達(dá)，要么他無(wú)心地說(shuō)了什么別的話，要么就是對(duì)他的話是否意義，幾乎毫不關(guān)心。”

這句名言來(lái)自喬治·奧威爾的《政治與英語(yǔ)》。本文用“當(dāng)權(quán)者”代替了原文中的“作家”二字，因?yàn)閵W威爾自然是不會(huì)拿馬克·扎克伯格當(dāng)諷刺對(duì)象的了。不過(guò)這句名言套在扎克伯格身上卻合適。因?yàn)榉叛壅麄€(gè)企業(yè)界，幾乎找不到第二家公司運(yùn)用語(yǔ)言的能力比Facebook還差了。

在企業(yè)界日趨內(nèi)卷化的當(dāng)下，企業(yè)偏愛口語(yǔ)化表達(dá)并不是什么新現(xiàn)象，也絕非Facebook一家的毛病。不過(guò)Facebook卻因?yàn)檫@個(gè)毛病而招來(lái)了不少麻煩。Facebook之所以屢屢被人從道德層面上挑毛病，甚至導(dǎo)致股價(jià)大跳水，與以扎克伯格為代表的Facebook高管喜愛使用大白話不無(wú)關(guān)系。

譬如，扎克伯格總是堅(jiān)稱，F(xiàn)acebook并非一家媒體公司。但Facebook作為一個(gè)全球性的廣播渠道，它的觀眾比地球上的任何一家電視臺(tái)都多，而且它也鯨吞了大量原本屬于傳統(tǒng)媒體行業(yè)的廣告收入。然而在今年4月出席美國(guó)國(guó)會(huì)聽證會(huì)時(shí)，扎克伯格卻依然不肯承認(rèn)Facebook是一家媒體公司這一赤裸裸的事實(shí)。

他對(duì)國(guó)會(huì)山的議員們表示：“我認(rèn)為我們是一家科技公司。”很多觀察人士的解讀是，扎克伯格試圖逃避Facebook在“通俄門”風(fēng)波中作為一家媒體、視頻和其他媒體提供商的責(zé)任。

這招“四兩撥千金”不僅讓我們想起那一年，某大型能源公司的CEO在石油泄露事故后，輕描淡寫地說(shuō)了句：“我們不是一家石油公司。”Facebook對(duì)輿論的污染，其實(shí)不亞于這家石油公司對(duì)環(huán)境的污染，只不過(guò)Facebook“排放”的是假新聞、水軍和陰謀論。以Facebook的規(guī)模，它的影響可以說(shuō)是個(gè)超級(jí)“大毒草”。如果扎克伯格真想把負(fù)面影響洗刷干凈，不妨從承認(rèn)Facebook是一家媒體公司開始。

奧威爾所謂“惡劣語(yǔ)言”的另一個(gè)例子，是Facebook動(dòng)輒以“社區(qū)”當(dāng)擋箭牌，遮掩一些顯然違反道德的錯(cuò)誤行為。比如最近，F(xiàn)acebook高管便以所謂“社區(qū)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)”為由，放任二戰(zhàn)大屠殺否認(rèn)者和InfoWars等臭名昭著的陰謀論網(wǎng)站在其平臺(tái)上頻頻發(fā)聲。

扎克伯格本人經(jīng)常祭出“社區(qū)”的大旗，給Facebook對(duì)處置錯(cuò)誤言論的猶豫不決當(dāng)借口。但正如社會(huì)學(xué)家澤伊內(nèi)普·圖費(fèi)克奇所指出的，扎克伯格首先應(yīng)該解釋一下，F(xiàn)acebook的20億用戶來(lái)自五湖四海，怎么可能用“社區(qū)”兩個(gè)字就能定義了呢？

我曾建議Facebook好好研究一下，“社區(qū)”對(duì)該公司的意義究竟是什么，奈何人微言輕。一位發(fā)言表示，F(xiàn)acebook在“安全、平等、發(fā)聲”和 “心懷社區(qū)”的基礎(chǔ)上制定了指導(dǎo)原則。我請(qǐng)她解釋一下，10億人憑什么可以被定義成一個(gè)“社區(qū)”，她只是建議我再參考一下公司的指導(dǎo)原則。

《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》的專欄作家法爾哈德·曼基奧總結(jié)道，F(xiàn)acebook的聲明政策是完全沒有任何意義的。他在評(píng)價(jià)扎克伯格對(duì)二戰(zhàn)大屠殺否認(rèn)者的有關(guān)言論時(shí)寫道：“所有這些都沒能通過(guò)一個(gè)基本的考試：它甚至沒有連貫性，只不過(guò)是一堆聲明、免責(zé)聲明和例外條款的大雜燴罷了。”

這種情況不僅令人失望，更重要的是，它在一定程序上剝奪了我們的選擇權(quán)和自主權(quán)。扎克伯格的“社區(qū)論”，將我們擱到了同一個(gè)社區(qū)里，這個(gè)社區(qū)里有你，有我，有水軍，有煽動(dòng)仇恨者，當(dāng)然，還有那些否認(rèn)二戰(zhàn)大屠殺的人。稍有常識(shí)的人都不愿意成為這樣的一個(gè)社區(qū)的一分子。在多數(shù)人看來(lái)，所謂“人以類聚，物以群分”，社區(qū)是持有相同價(jià)值觀的人的群體。然而在扎克伯格看來(lái)，這個(gè)詞顯然另有所指。

作家卡瑞娜·喬卡諾阿指出：“像Facebook這樣的平臺(tái)號(hào)稱是為了‘創(chuàng)建社區(qū)’而存在，然而實(shí)際上卻利用了社區(qū)，為那些社區(qū)以外的人（如企業(yè)界、戰(zhàn)略公關(guān)界、摩爾多瓦的黑客圈等等）謀取利益。他們邀請(qǐng)成員進(jìn)行‘參與’，但卻不邀請(qǐng)成員共同決策。最大的利益、最大的權(quán)力，仍然是歸私人所有。”

如果扎克伯格堅(jiān)持使用“社區(qū)”這個(gè)詞，那他至少要做出一些艱難的抉擇——決定誰(shuí)是這個(gè)社區(qū)的一員，誰(shuí)則不屬于這個(gè)社區(qū)。這樣的決定，應(yīng)該基于法律、道德和哲學(xué)做出，而不是由一個(gè)公關(guān)團(tuán)隊(duì)倉(cāng)促拼湊出的一篇大雜燴。

本月，在Facebook供職多年的高管艾利克斯·斯塔莫斯在他的離職信中也表明了同樣的觀點(diǎn)。斯塔莫斯用非常坦率淺顯的語(yǔ)言表示，F(xiàn)acebook當(dāng)前的窘境，恰恰是公司這種“小事精明、大事糊涂”的毛病造成的。他還呼吁Facebook進(jìn)行改革：“在明顯的道德問(wèn)題或人道主義問(wèn)題上，我們必須敢于選邊站隊(duì)。”此信首先發(fā)表于新聞網(wǎng)站BuzzFeed。（斯塔莫斯曾任Facebook首席信息安全官。）

如果扎克伯格想帶領(lǐng)Facebook度過(guò)眼前的“道德危機(jī)”，他至少要在語(yǔ)言、思想和行為上表現(xiàn)出清晰性，摒棄奧威爾所謂的“語(yǔ)言垃圾”，用清晰的語(yǔ)言跟Facebook用戶說(shuō)話。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：樸成奎?

“The [executive] either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.”

The quote is from Politics and the English Language and while George Orwell never made Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg his object of scorn—the original reads “writer” in place of “executive”—he would have been right to do so. More than any other company today, Facebook has a freakish inability to use words.

Facebook’s penchant for verbal nonsense is neither new nor particularly unique in a corporate world that loves self-interested spin. But today, that habit is driving a crisis of trust engulfing the Silicon Valley company. The failure of its executives, particularly co-founder Zuckerberg, to speak in plain, candid language during earnings calls and other appearances is a big reason that Facebook can’t escape the moral quagmire that led to an overnight plunge in its lofty stock price.

Want an example of Facebook’s failure with words? Begin with Zuckerberg’s bizarre insistence that he doesn’t run a media company. Facebook has long operated a global broadcast channel with more viewers than any television station on the planet, and has gobbled much of the advertising revenue once enjoyed by traditional media outlets. Yet in testifying before Congress in April, Zuckerberg again would not concede the obvious proposition that Facebook is a media company.

“I consider us to be a technology company,” he told lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Many observers interpreted the response as an attempt to shirk responsibility for Facebook’s role as a purveyor of news, video, and other media in the wake of Russian interference in U.S. elections.

Such prevarications are akin to the CEO of a large energy company declaring, when confronted with a massive spill: “We’re not an oil company.” In Facebook’s case, the company pumps its own pollution in the form of fake news, troll armies, and conspiracy theories. At Facebook’s scale, it amounts to a massive sludge of toxic media. If Zuckerberg truly hopes to clean it up, he can start by admitting he’s in the media business.

Another example of what Orwell called “debased language” is Facebook’s invocation of “the community” to justify behavior that is abhorrent and wrong. Most recently, executives muttered about “community standards” in a limp defense of why Facebook allows Holocaust deniers or the noxious conspiracy site InfoWars to flourish on its platform.

Zuckerberg himself has invoked “the community” over and over to explain Facebook’s foot-dragging. But as sociologist Zeynep Tufekci pointed out, Zuckerberg has failed to explain how the 2 billion people who use Facebook can possibly be defined as a community.

I called Facebook to learn more about what “community” means to the company, to little avail. A spokesperson said Facebook develops guidelines “with the community in mind” and on the basis of “safety, equity, and voice.” I asked the spokesperson to explain how a billion people can be “a community” and she simply referred me back to the guidelines.

The exchange underscored why New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo has concluded that Facebook’s stated policies make no sense. “All of this fails a basic test: It’s not even coherent. It is a hodgepodge of declarations and exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions,” Manjoo wrote while describing Zuckerberg’s verbal contortions about Holocaust deniers using the service.

The incoherence is frustrating but, worse, it’s disempowering. When Zuckerberg defends Facebook’s latest outrage in the name of the community, it puts all of us in that community—you and me and the trolls and the hate-mongers and yes, the Holocaust deniers. No decent person wants to be part of such a community. Most see a community as a group of people who share similar values and with whom they choose to identify. To Zuckerberg, the word apparently means something else.

“Platforms like Facebook, which exist for the express purpose of ‘creating community,’ turn out to be in the business of exploiting the communities they’ve created for the benefit of those outside (the business community, the strategic communications community, the Moldovan hacker community),” explains writer Carina Chocanoa. “They invite members to ‘participate,’ but not, in the end, to make decisions together; the largest rewards, and the greatest powers, stay private.”

If Zuckerberg wants to cling to the word “community,” he will have to make some hard decisions about who is part of that community and who is not. Such a decision should be informed by law and ethics and philosophy—not a slapdash jumble of words compiled by his public relations team.

In a remarkable farewell letter this month, a longtime Facebook executive, Alex Stamos, made this very point. Using blunt and very understandable language, Stamos attributed the company’s current predicament to thousands of small decisions and called for a change. “We need to be willing to pick sides when there are clear moral or humanitarian issues,” Stamos wrote in the letter, first published by BuzzFeed. (Stamos served as chief information security officer at Facebook.)

That clarity—of words and thoughts and deeds—is what’s needed from Zuckerberg if he wants to lift his company out of the moral muck. One way to start would be for him to jettison what Orwell called “l(fā)ump[s] of verbal refuse” and speak to Facebook users in clear English.