评论
打印
Saudis Deploy a Swarm of Online Trolls to Stifle Critics like Khashoggi
沙特部署网络水军，专门扼杀哈苏吉等批判人士
By Katie Benner, Mark Mazzetti, Ben Hubbard and Mike Isaac
文/卡蒂·本纳，马克·马泽蒂，本·哈巴德，迈克·艾萨克
Each morning, Jamal Khashoggi would check his phone to discover what fresh hell had been unleashed while he was sleeping.
每天早上，贾马尔·哈苏吉都会打开手机看看他睡觉期间网上又发了哪些新的鬼话。
He would see the work of an army of Twitter trolls, ordered to attack him and other influential Saudis who had criticized the kingdom’s leaders.
他会看到一大群推特水军的言论，他们都是受命到网上攻击他还有其他颇具影响力又批判过该王国各位领导人的沙特人的。
He sometimes took the attacks personally, so friends made a point of calling frequently to check on his mental state.
有时，哈苏吉也会将这些攻击当真，所以朋友们都特别注意经常给他打电话，确保他的精神还正常。
"The mornings were the worst for him because he would wake up to the equivalent of sustained gunfire online,"
“早上对他来说是最糟糕的，因为他一醒来就要面对一场持续的网络枪战，
said Maggie Mitchell Salem, a friend of Mr. Khashoggi’s for more than 15 years.
与哈苏吉有着15多年交情的麦琪·米歇尔·赛伦说到。
Mr. Khashoggi’s online attackers were part of a broad effort dictated by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his close advisers to silence critics both inside Saudi Arabia and abroad.
为了让沙特内外的批判者们噤声，王储穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼及其关系亲密的顾问做出了广泛指示，那些攻击哈苏吉的网络喷子就在其中。
Hundreds of people work at a so-called troll farm in Riyadh to smother the voices of dissidents like Mr. Khashoggi.
利雅得一个所谓的“巨魔农场”上养着数百名水军，专门扼杀哈苏吉之类持不同政见者的声音。
The vigorous push also appears to include the grooming — not previously reported — of a Saudi employee at Twitter
沙特王储的这一强势举措似乎还包括给推特的一名沙特员工洗脑，此事在此之前并未见报，
whom Western intelligence officials suspected of spying on user accounts to help the Saudi leadership.
据西方情报官员怀疑，该员工有监视用户账户以帮助沙特领导人的嫌疑。
The killing by Saudi agents of Mr. Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post,
沙特特工杀害《华盛顿邮报》专栏作家哈苏吉一事，
has focused the world’s attention on the kingdom’s intimidation campaign against influential voices,
将全世界的注意力都吸引到了沙特王国为镇压有影响力的人士采取的恐吓活动上，
raising questions about the darker side of the crown prince.
进而引起了人们对这位王储阴暗面的质疑。
The young royal has tightened his grip on the kingdom while presenting himself in Western capitals as the man to reform the hidebound Saudi state.
这位年轻的王室成员一边加强自己对王室的控制，一边以改革守旧的沙特王国的改革者的形象出现在西方各国的首都。
This portrait of the kingdom’s image management crusade is based on interviews with seven people involved in those efforts or briefed on them;
这一王国形象管理改革运动的描述是本刊采访了七位知情人士，这些人要么是那些活动的参与者，要么收到过相关汇报；
activists and experts who have studied them; and American and Saudi officials, along with messages seen by The New York Times that described the inner workings of the troll farm.
要么是研究过这些活动的活动家和专家；要么是美国和沙特的官员，加上本刊看到的描述“巨魔农场”内部运作的信息得出来的。
Saudi operatives have mobilized to harass critics on Twitter, a wildly popular platform for news in the kingdom since the Arab Spring uprisings began in 2010.
沙特特工已经动员起来在推特上骚扰沙特的批判者，因为，从2010年“阿拉伯之春”起义以来，推特在该国一直是一家广受欢迎的新闻平台。
Saud al-Qahtani, a top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed who was fired on Saturday in the fallout from Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, was the strategist behind the operation, according to United States and Saudi officials, as well as activist organizations.
根据美国和沙特官员及维权组织的说法，沙特·阿尔-卡塔尼，受哈苏吉之死影响于周六被解雇的穆罕默德王储的高级顾问，就是此次行动背后的策划。
Many Saudis had hoped that Twitter would democratize discourse by giving everyday citizens a voice,
许多沙特人都指望着推特能够通过赋予普通公民发言权来使沙特的话语更加民主，
but Saudi Arabia has instead become an illustration of how authoritarian governments can manipulate social media to silence or drown out critical voices while spreading their own version of reality.
然而，沙特反而成了一个专治政府操控社交媒体禁言、淹没批判的声音，同时散布他们所谓的现实的例子。
“In the Gulf, the stakes are so high for those who engage in dissent that the benefits of using social media are outweighed by the negatives, and in Saudi Arabia in particular,”
“在海湾地区，尤其是在沙特，存有异议的人往往都冒着巨大的风险，以致于对他们而言，使用社交媒体的好处远不及使用它的坏处大，”
said Marc Owen Jones, a lecturer in the history of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula at Exeter University in Britain.
英国埃克塞特大学波斯湾和阿拉伯半岛历史方向的讲师马克·欧文·琼斯说到。
Neither Saudi officials nor Mr. Qahtani responded to requests for comment about the kingdom’s efforts to control online conversations.
媒体请求沙特官员和卡塔尼对沙特王国努力控制网络言论一事发表看法，双方均未做出回应。
Before his death, Mr. Khashoggi was launching projects to combat online abuse and to try to reveal that Crown Prince Mohammed was mismanaging the country.
去世前，哈苏吉先生正在着手启动打击网络霸凌的项目，揭露穆罕默德王储对该国管理不善的事实。
In September, Mr. Khashoggi wired $5,000 to Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi dissident living in Canada, who was creating a volunteer army to combat the government trolls on Twitter.
九月，哈苏吉给居住在加拿大对沙特持不同政见者的奥马尔·阿卜杜勒阿齐兹汇去了5000美元的资金，当时后者正在推特上组织一支反抗沙特政府的水军的志愿军。
The volunteers called themselves the “Electronic Bees.”
那些志愿者们自称“电子蜂。”
Eleven days before Mr. Khashoggi died in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, he wrote on Twitter that the Bees were coming.
哈苏吉在伊斯坦布尔的沙特使馆出事的11天前，他曾在推特上发文，称电子蜂就要出巢了。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
