大西洋月刊：精准投放误导信息 播种反叛 助总统选举（1）
科学百姓 姜涛 2020.2.12
“本来我们是用数据来挫败极端主义的进程，史蒂夫·班农做到了反其道而行之，变成用数据在美国播种起义叛乱。”
---- 剑桥分析公司的研究主任克里斯托弗·怀里
编辑注：这是摘译《大西洋月刊》的调查报道，讲述班农和其他中文报刊里名不见经传的政治竞选策略操作人如何用精准数据广告技术，帮助特朗普赢得2016年总统选举，并致力于赢得连任的故事。大西洋月刊是美国文化月刊，与华尔街日报、纽约时报、华盛顿邮报等报刊被列为最优秀的前十来个新闻刊物。邮件联系： scitizen-editor@outlook.com
The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President：How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election
用数十亿美元的信息误导攻势让总统连任：世上独裁者开创的新技术和策略将怎样塑造2020年的美国选举
Story by McKay Coppins 麦凯·科平斯撰写
February 10, 2020. 2020年2月10日
One day last fall, I sat down to create a new Facebook account. I picked a forgettable name, snapped a profile pic with my face obscured, and clicked “Like” on the official pages of Donald Trump and his reelection campaign. Facebook’s algorithm prodded me to follow Ann Coulter, Fox Business, and a variety of fan pages with names like “In Trump We Trust.” I complied. I also gave my cellphone number to the Trump campaign, and joined a handful of private Facebook groups for MAGA diehards, one of which required an application that seemed designed to screen out interlopers.
去年秋天的一天，我坐下来创建一个新的脸书帐户。我选择了一个平常的网名，整了一张脸部模糊的个人资料照片，然后在唐纳德·特朗普及其竞选委员会的官方页面上“点赞” 了一下。脸书系统背后的算法开始动作，督促我设置我的脸书账户自动追读Ann Coulter（一位著名的支持川普的政策的作家和网红）、狐狸台（支持特朗普的新闻媒体）、以及各种各样的网名叫做类似“信仰特朗普” 的特朗普粉丝专页。我一一照办，还把我的手机号码填给了特朗普竞选委员会，并加入了一些以 “让美国重新伟大”为主题的硬核脸书私群，其中一个群需要我走一个申请程序，似乎旨在屏蔽目的不良的混入者。
The president’s reelection campaign was then in the midst of a multimillion-dollar ad blitz aimed at shaping Americans’ understanding of the recently launched impeachment proceedings. Thousands of micro-targeted ads had flooded the internet, portraying Trump as a heroic reformer cracking down on foreign corruption while Democrats plotted a coup. That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread. Right-wing websites amplified every claim. Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories. An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country, and I wanted to see it from the inside.
当时，总统的连选活动正处于一场耗资数百万美元的广告闪电战中，旨在塑造美国人对国会刚启动的对特朗普的弹劾工作的理解。成千上万个精准投放的广告充斥着互联网，将特朗普总统描绘成一个打击外国腐败的英雄改革者，而把民主党描述为在策划一场颠覆特朗普总统的政变。这种叙述与事实几乎完全的相悖，反而加速其传播效力。右翼网站扩大宣传这些声言，挺特朗普的网络论坛充斥着阴谋论。围绕美国当时的最重大的新闻事件（即国会对特朗普的弹劾），一个另类信息生态系统正在形成，我想从内部了解这个生态体系。
The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about the president’s conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited video—served up by the Trump campaign—that used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?
在接下来的几周里，对我的脸书账户传送的新闻故事时常让我叹为观止。有时候，我看着电视直播弹劾川普的国会听证会上证人对总统不良行为的确凿证词，随后就在手机上收到特朗普竞选委员会精巧剪辑的视频，通过剪接上下文，把证人的证词编辑成为证明总统无罪。我发现不止一次自己疑问自己，手机上传来的视频真的是今天国会听证会上发生的事情吗？
As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: “That’s right, the whistleblower’s own lawyer said, ‘The coup has started …’ ” Swipe. “Democrats are doing Putin’s bidding …” Swipe. “The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing …” Swipe. “Only one man can stop this chaos …” Swipe, swipe, swipe.
我刷阅手机屏幕，亲特朗普的宣传信息填充着我的屏幕：“这是对的，吹口哨者（译者注：即向美国情报系统监查长办公室举报特朗普的人）自己的律师说‘俺们的政变开始了......’” 刷阅下一条：“民主党人正在给普京效力......。” 刷阅下一条：“唯一能让这些激进的社会主义者和极端分子懂事的是让他们受到毁灭性的......。” 刷阅下一条：“只有一个人可以阻止当前的混乱……。” 下一条，下一条、下一条。
I was surprised by the effect it had on me. I’d assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions. But I soon found myself reflexively questioning every headline. It wasn’t that I believed Trump and his boosters were telling the truth. It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itself—about Ukraine, impeachment, or anything else—felt more and more difficult to locate. With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach.
这些信息对我产生的作用让我感到惊讶。我一向以为我的疑心和媒体素养会让我对这些歪曲有免疫力。但是我很快发现自己开始条件反射地质疑每天读到的新闻。倒不是我相信特朗普和他的支持者说的是真相，而是在这种高度疑虑的状态下，真相本身越来越难寻觅，不论是关于乌克兰（译者注：即特朗普用军援作为杠杆向乌克兰总统施加压力调查自己政敌的案子）、关于国会弹劾特朗普、或关于任何其它事情的真相。每次刷阅手机屏幕，都让人觉得通过观察可以知晓现实的可能性越发显得缥缈。
What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.
我所看到是非自由主义倾向的政治领袖在全球广泛采用的策略。这些领袖并不禁止异议，而是学会驾驭社交媒体具备的民主化能力，通过在社交媒体发出干扰信号和播发混淆信息来达到自己的目的。他们不再需要让街上持不同政见者封口，而是可以用扩音器发出的声音来压抑对方的异议。专业研究人员称之为 “凭籍噪音的新闻检查”。
After the 2016 election, much was made of the threats posed to American democracy by foreign disinformation. Stories of Russian troll farms and Macedonian fake-news mills loomed in the national imagination. But while these shadowy outside forces preoccupied politicians and journalists, Trump and his domestic allies were beginning to adopt the same tactics of information warfare that have kept the world’s demagogues and strongmen in power.
2016年大选后，大家热议源于外国的虚假信息对美国民主带来的威胁。关于俄罗斯的蛊惑工场（译者注：指的是安排工作人员加入社交媒体发布蛊惑言论的机构）和马其顿假新闻工厂（译者注：指的是马其顿的一个小镇上失业青年建造100多政治网站发布危言耸听的新闻来创业谋生）的故事占据国人的想象。但是，当这些阴暗的外部势力笼罩我国政客和新闻记者的心绪的时候，特朗普及其国内盟友着手把这些让世上煽动家和强人得以掌权的信息战策略采为己用。
Read: What, exactly, were Russians trying to do with those Facebook ads?
阅读：到底俄国人在用脸书社交媒体广告实现什么目的？
Every presidential campaign sees its share of spin and misdirection, but this year’s contest promises to be different. In conversations with political strategists and other experts, a dystopian picture of the general election comes into view—one shaped by coordinated bot attacks, Potemkin local-news sites, micro-targeted fearmongering, and anonymous mass texting. Both parties will have these tools at their disposal. But in the hands of a president who lies constantly, who traffics in conspiracy theories, and who readily manipulates the levers of government for his own gain, their potential to wreak havoc is enormous.
每个总统候选人的竞选机构都会或多或少有过跟公众的瞎扯和对公众的误导，但是今年的竞选可望有所不同。在与政治谋略师和其他专家进行的交流时，我们看到一个美国大选的敌托邦前景（译者注：与乌托邦相对，指的是一个不理想、不可取的前景）冉冉呈现 ---- 通过缜密协调的僵尸攻击、假造的地方新闻网站、微调精准投放的的恐慌煽动、和批量发送的匿名短信打造。双方都会拥有这些手段。但是，这些手段在一个永远谎话连篇、兜售阴谋论、尽情运营政府机器谋取私利的总统手里，可以造成巨大破坏。
The Trump campaign is planning to spend more than $1 billion, and it will be aided by a vast coalition of partisan media, outside political groups, and enterprising freelance operatives. These pro-Trump forces are poised to wage what could be the most extensive disinformation campaign in U.S. history. Whether or not it succeeds in reelecting the president, the wreckage it leaves behind could be irreparable.
特朗普竞选活动计划花费超过10亿美元，并将得到包括庞大的党派媒体、外部政治团体、以及富有进取力的独立行动者的联盟支持。这些亲特朗普势力准备好了要发动可能是美国历史上最广泛的虚假宣传运动。无论他们能否成功让特朗普连选连任，虚假宣传可能造成不可修复的社会败坏。
THE DEATH STAR 死亡之星（译者注：源于电影星球大战里的超级武装星球）
The campaign is run from the 14th floor of a gleaming, modern office tower in Rosslyn, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. Glass-walled conference rooms look out on the Potomac River. Rows of sleek monitors line the main office space. Unlike the bootstrap operation that first got Trump elected—with its motley band of B-teamers toiling in an unfinished space in Trump Tower—his 2020 enterprise is heavily funded, technologically sophisticated, and staffed with dozens of experienced operatives. One Republican strategist referred to it, admiringly, as “the Death Star.”
特朗普的竞选委员会是在弗吉尼亚州罗斯林市的一座闪闪发光的现代化办公大楼的14层办公。玻璃墙的会议室可俯瞰波托马克河。主办公室摆着一排排精致的显示器。与特朗普第一次选举时在特朗普大厦里的一个未装修场地办公、由二流人员劳作的临时简陋的组织不同了，他的2020年竞选机构资金雄厚、技术精良、并配备了数十名经验丰富的干部。一位共和党战略家称赞之为“死亡之星”。
Presiding over this effort is Brad Parscale, a 6-foot-8 Viking of a man with a shaved head and a triangular beard. As the digital director of Trump’s 2016 campaign, Parscale didn’t become a household name like Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. But he played a crucial role in delivering Trump to the Oval Office—and his efforts will shape this year’s election.
主持这项工作的是布拉德·帕斯卡尔（Brad Parscale），这是一个身高6英尺8的维京斗士一样的人，剃光头和把胡须修饰成三角形。作为特朗普2016年竞选活动的数字技术总监，帕斯卡尔不像史蒂夫·班农（Steve Bannon）和凯丽安·康威（Kellyanne Conway）那样广为人知。但他在将特朗普选入椭圆形总统白宫办公室的工作上发挥了至关重要的作用 – 他的工作将影响今年的选举。
In speeches and interviews, Parscale likes to tell his life story as a tidy rags-to-riches tale, embroidered with Trumpian embellishments. He grew up a simple “farm boy from Kansas” (read: son of an affluent lawyer from suburban Topeka) who managed to graduate from an “Ivy League” school (Trinity University, in San Antonio). After college, he went to work for a software company in California, only to watch the business collapse in the economic aftermath of 9/11 (not to mention allegations in a lawsuit that he and his parents, who owned the business, had illegally transferred company funds—claims that they disputed). Broke and desperate, Parscale took his “last $500” (not counting the value of three rental properties he owned) and used it to start a one-man web-design business in Texas.
在演讲和访谈中，帕斯卡尔喜欢讲他的从衣衫褴褛之辈到富人的华丽转身故事，其中不乏特朗普式（译者注：指的是特朗普夸大个人经历的特点）的渲染点缀。比如他介绍自己是简朴“堪萨斯州的农家男孩”长大（实际读作：堪萨斯州首府托皮卡市郊区富有律师的儿子）；他说自己成功地从“常春藤联盟”学校毕业（实际是位于德克萨斯州圣安东尼奥市的三一大学）。他说大学毕业后去了加利福尼亚的一家软件公司工作，公司不幸因9/11对经济影响而垮台，却没说这家公司是他父母拥有，也不提他和他父母因为非法转移公司资金被起诉（他和他父母否认非法转移资金）。他说在极度沮丧和绝望中用他的“最后500美元”在得克萨斯州开始了的网页设计的个人创业，却不把他拥有的用于出租的三幢房产的价值算在内。
Parscale Media was, by most accounts, a scrappy endeavor at the outset. Hustling to drum up clients, Parscale cold-pitched shoppers in the tech aisle of a Borders bookstore. Over time, he built enough websites for plumbers and gun shops that bigger clients took notice—including the Trump Organization. In 2011, Parscale was invited to bid on designing a website for Trump International Realty. An ardent fan of The Apprentice, he offered to do the job for $10,000, a fraction of the actual cost. “I just made up a price,” he later told The Washington Post. “I recognized that I was a nobody in San Antonio, but working for the Trumps would be everything.” The contract was his, and a lucrative relationship was born.
根据对多人的采访，我们知道帕斯卡尔媒体开始是个不怎样的公司，靠在当地书店的技术图书过道招揽顾客。随着时间的流逝，他为水管修理工和枪店等客户建的网站有些数量，得到包括特朗普公司在内的一些较大的客户的注意。在2011年，帕斯卡尔受邀竞标为特朗普国际地产设计网站。作为特朗普电视节目《学徒》的热心粉丝，他提出以10,000美元的价格完成网站建设工作，报价只是实际成本的一小部分。他后来告诉《 华盛顿邮报》：“我意识到我在圣安东尼奥市什么人物也不是，但是能得到特朗普的生意将给我提供一切。”他拿到了特朗普的网站建设合同，一种有利可图的关系诞生了。
Over the next four years, he was hired to design websites for a range of Trump ventures—a winery, a skin-care line, and then a presidential campaign. By late 2015, Parscale—a man with no discernible politics, let alone campaign experience—was running the Republican front-runner’s digital operation from his personal laptop.
Parscale slid comfortably into Trump’s orbit. Not only was he cheap and unpretentious—with no hint of the savvier-than-thou smugness that characterized other political operatives—but he seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder that matched the candidate’s. “Brad was one of those people who wanted to prove the establishment wrong and show the world what he was made of,” says a former colleague from the campaign.
在接下来的四年中，他被聘请为多个特朗普企业设计网站，包括酿酒厂、护肤产品系列、以及总统竞选委员会。到2015年下半年，帕斯卡尔从一个没什么大家看得到的政治追求、更不用说竞选经验的人，一跃成为共和党总统竞选人领头羊特朗普的数字化运作团队的领导。他那时还一切依赖他的个人笔记本电脑办事。
帕斯卡尔轻松地进入特朗普的圈子。他索取的报酬不贵，行事朴实，毫无其他政治运作专家典型的自以为高明一筹的做派。他似乎跟他辅助的总统候选人特朗普一样，有一种好斗不服人的习性。竞选委员会一位前同事说：“帕斯卡尔属于想证明建制派错了、以及想向全世界展示自己真正了不起的那类人。”
Perhaps most important, he seemed to have no reservations about the kind of campaign Trump wanted to run. The race-baiting, the immigrant-bashing, the truth-bending—none of it seemed to bother Parscale. While some Republicans wrung their hands over Trump’s inflammatory messages, Parscale came up with ideas to more effectively disseminate them.
也许最重要的是，帕斯卡尔似乎对特朗普要鼓捣的竞选活动的性质毫无保留地认同。不论是打种族牌、攻击移民、扭曲事实真相，似乎没有什么举动会让帕斯卡尔迟疑。一些共和党人会为特朗普的蛊惑煽动言辞而不好意思，帕斯卡尔则丝毫不为所困，反而想方设法更有效力地传播特朗普的声音。
Read: Bots are destroying political discourse as we know it
阅读：网络机器人在摧毁现有的政治讨论
The campaign had little interest at first in cutting-edge ad technology, and for a while, Parscale’s most valued contribution was the merchandise page he built to sell MAGA hats. But that changed in the general election. Outgunned on the airwaves and lagging badly in fundraising, campaign officials turned to Google and Facebook, where ads were inexpensive and shock value was rewarded. As the campaign poured tens of millions into online advertising—amplifying themes such as Hillary Clinton’s criminality and the threat of radical Islamic terrorism—Parscale’s team, which was christened Project Alamo, grew to 100.
特朗普竞选委员会起初对新广告技术兴趣不大，相当一段时间，帕斯卡尔为竞选做的最有价值的贡献是他建立的销售印着 “让美国再伟大” 字号的帽子的网页。这个情况在大选中改变了，那时候特朗普的竞选委员会在电视节目上处于劣势，筹款也大为不如其它候选人，于是他们转向了谷歌和脸书，那里的广告价格不贵，广告产生的震撼力效果不菲。竞选委员会向在线广告投入数千万美元，用于渲染以希拉里·克林顿的刑事犯罪和激进伊斯兰恐怖主义的威胁为主题的信息。帕斯卡尔团队的工作被命名为 “阿拉莫（Alamo）项目”，人数增长到100人。
Parscale was generally well liked by his colleagues, who recall him as competent and intensely focused. “He was a get-shit-done type of person,” says A. J. Delgado, who worked with him. Perhaps just as important, he had a talent for ingratiating himself with the Trump family. “He was probably better at managing up,” Kurt Luidhardt, a consultant for the campaign, told me. He made sure to share credit for his work with the candidate’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and he excelled at using Trump’s digital ignorance to flatter him. “Parscale would come in and tell Trump he didn’t need to listen to the polls, because he’d crunched his data and they were going to win by six points,” one former campaign staffer told me. “I was like, ‘Come on, man, don’t bullshit a bullshitter.’ ” But Trump seemed to buy it. (Parscale declined to be interviewed for this story.)
帕斯卡尔受到他的同事们的普遍喜爱，他们对他的印象是有能力和极为专注。“他属于执行力强的人，” 曾经与他一起工作的AJ Delgado说。也许同样重要的是，帕斯卡尔有与特朗普家族讨好的才干。“他管理上级的工作可能做得比管理下级的工作好，” 竞选顾问科特·吕德哈特告诉我。他确保与候选人的女婿贾里德·库什纳共享他的工作成果，并且擅长利用特朗普在数字上的无知来恭维他。一位前竞选人员告诉我：“ 帕斯卡尔会跑进来告诉特朗普不要相信民意调查，因为他自己研究了数据，表明特朗普将赢6%的选票（译者注：实际结果是特朗普输了2%的选票，只是因为美国不依赖全国而是依赖州投票的做法才让特朗普当上总统）。我当时跟他说 ‘你这家伙真行，居然忽悠一个大忽悠（指特朗普）。’” 但是特朗普似乎接受帕斯卡尔给他灌输的情况。（帕斯卡尔拒绝接受为这个报道接受采访。）
阅读：假新闻的真正问题
James Barnes, a Facebook employee who was dispatched to work closely with the campaign, told me Parscale’s political inexperience made him open to experimenting with the platform’s new tools. “Whereas some grizzled campaign strategist who’d been around the block a few times might say, ‘Oh, that will never work,’ Brad’s predisposition was to say, ‘Yeah, let’s try it.’ ” From June to November, Trump’s campaign ran 5.9 million ads on Facebook, while Clinton’s ran just 66,000. A Facebook executive would later write in a leaked memo that Trump “got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen from any advertiser.”
詹姆斯·巴恩斯（James Barnes）是脸书的一位雇员，被脸书派为特朗普竞选委员会的客户经理。巴恩斯告诉我帕斯卡尔的政治经验不足，反而使他愿意尝试使用脸书平台提供的新工具。“而其他一些做过几次选举竞选工作的老资格政治策略人士可能会说，‘哦，这些工具不会奏效的吧。’ 而帕斯卡尔的态度倾向是：‘好啊，让我们试试你这个工具看行不行。” 从6月到11月，特朗普的竞选委员会在脸书上投放了590万个广告，而克林顿的竞选委员会只投放了66,000个。一位脸书高管后来在一封泄露的备忘录中写道，特朗普“当选是因为他运作了我从在任何 广告商那里见过的最棒的数字技术广告攻势。”
Though some strategists questioned how much these ads actually mattered, Parscale was hailed for Trump’s surprise victory. Stories appeared in the press calling him a “genius” and the campaign’s “secret weapon,” and in 2018 he was tapped to lead the entire reelection effort. The promotion was widely viewed as a sign that the president’s 2020 strategy would hinge on the digital tactics that Parscale had mastered.
尽管一些竞选策略家质疑这些广告的实际作用，特朗普的出乎意外的竞选胜利让帕斯卡尔得到欢呼歌颂。一些新闻报道称他是“天才”，是特朗普竞选的 “秘密武器”。2018年，他被任命领导特朗普的整个连任选举工作。此次升职被广泛认为标志着特朗普总统2020年选举战略将取决于帕斯卡尔掌握的数字技术策略。
Read: What Facebook did to American democracy
阅读：脸书把美国民主搞成什么样了？
Through it all, the strategist has continued to show a preference for narrative over truth. Last May, Parscale regaled a crowd of donors and activists in Miami with the story of his ascent. When a ProPublica reporter confronted him about the many misleading details in his account, he shrugged off the fact-check. “When I give a speech, I tell it like a story,” he said. “My story is my story.”
在之后的选举战，帕斯卡尔这位竞选策略家继续显示出把叙事（即如何说事）至于真相之上。去年五月，帕斯卡尔对一众欣赏他的捐助人和积极分子讲述了他的人生成就故事。当一位记者指出他讲的自己故事中的许多误导性细节时，帕斯卡尔对记者的事实核查不以为然，耸耸肩说：“我做演讲就是这么讲故事，我讲的故事就是我的故事。”
DISINFORMATION ARCHITECTURE 信息误导平台
In his book This Is Not Propaganda, Peter Pomerantsev, a researcher at the London School of Economics, writes about a young Filipino political consultant he calls “P.” In college, P had studied the “Little Albert experiment,” in which scientists conditioned a young child to fear furry animals by exposing him to loud noises every time he encountered a white lab rat. The experiment gave P an idea. He created a series of Facebook groups for Filipinos to discuss what was going on in their communities. Once the groups got big enough—about 100,000 members—he began posting local crime stories, and instructed his employees to leave comments falsely tying the grisly headlines to drug cartels. The pages lit up with frightened chatter. Rumors swirled; conspiracy theories metastasized. To many, all crimes became drug crimes.
在他的《这不是宣传》书中，伦敦政治经济学院的研究员彼得·波莫兰捷夫讲了他称为 “ P”的一位年轻的菲律宾政治顾问的故事。P 在上大学时读到所谓 “阿尔伯特实验”。在这个实验里，科研人员用条件反射培育一个儿童对毛茸茸动物的害怕，做法是每当这位儿童看到实验室的白小鼠时，就伴随播放很响的噪音。这个实验给P一个启迪，他为菲律宾人创建了一系列脸书群，用于讨论他们社区中正在发生的事情。当这些脸书群足够大（大约有100,000名成员）时，他就开始贴当地的犯罪故事，并指示他的员工留下虚假的评论，将这些恐怖的犯罪报道与毒品集团联系起来。顿时这些脸书群网页充斥各种惊恐色彩的聊天评论。流言纷飞，阴谋论到处流传。对许多人来说，所有当地的犯罪都变成了毒品犯罪。
Unbeknownst to their members, the Facebook groups were designed to boost Rodrigo Duterte, then a long-shot presidential candidate running on a pledge to brutally crack down on drug criminals. (Duterte once boasted that, as mayor of Davao City, he rode through the streets on his motorcycle and personally executed drug dealers.) P’s experiment was one plank in a larger “disinformation architecture”—which also included social-media influencers paid to mock opposing candidates, and mercenary trolls working out of former call centers—that experts say aided Duterte’s rise to power. Since assuming office in 2016, Duterte has reportedly ramped up these efforts while presiding over thousands of extrajudicial killings.
群友不知道的是，这些脸书群是专门运作来提升当时希望不大的菲律宾总统候选人杜特尔特的胜算。杜特尔特的选举以对毒品犯罪分子无情打击为核心。（杜特尔特曾经吹嘘说他当达沃市市长时，骑着摩托车在市里大街小巷亲自处决毒贩。）P的实验只是一个更庞大的 “虚假信息体系平台”中的一个板块而已，这个体系还包括雇佣网红在社交媒体嘲弄反对派的候选人，以及在先前的呼叫中心改装的办公室工作的网络雇佣军团。专家认为这些策略帮助了杜特尔特上台。自2016年就任总统以来，据闻杜特尔特加大了这些方面的努力，同时部署了数以千计的非法处决。
The campaign in the Philippines was emblematic of an emerging propaganda playbook, one that uses new tools for the age-old ends of autocracy. The Kremlin has long been an innovator in this area. (A 2011 manual for Russian civil servants favorably compared their methods of disinformation to “an invisible radiation” that takes effect while “the population doesn’t even feel it is being acted upon.”) But with the technological advances of the past decade, and the global proliferation of smartphones, governments around the world have found success deploying Kremlin-honed techniques against their own people.
菲律宾的总统竞选案例是当今一种新型宣传战兵法的一个缩影，这种宣传兵法使用新工具来服务古老的独裁统治目的。克里姆林宫俄国政府长期以来是这一领域的创新者。（2011年的一份俄罗斯公务员手册将他们的虚假信息方法比作 “无形的辐射”，在人们 “甚至感觉不到被辐射的情况下” 就生效了。）但是随着过去十年的技术进步，随着智能手机的全球广泛使用，世界各地的政府成功地将克里姆林宫锻造精湛的技术用于对付他们自己的人民。
Read: Peter Pomerantsev on Russia and the menace of unreality
阅读：俄罗斯和虚假对我们的威胁
In the United States, we tend to view such tools of oppression as the faraway problems of more fragile democracies. But the people working to reelect Trump understand the power of these tactics. They may use gentler terminology—muddy the waters; alternative facts—but they’re building a machine designed to exploit their own sprawling disinformation architecture.
在美国，我们倾向于将这种用于压迫的手段视为距离遥远的脆弱民主国家才有的毛病。但是致力于选特朗普连任的人们鉴赏这些策略的威力。他们可能会使用较温和的术语，比如称为“把水搅浑” 和 “另类事实” 之类，但他们正在建造一个大机器来充分利用他们自己的信息误导平台。
Central to that effort is the campaign’s use of micro-targeting—the process of slicing up the electorate into distinct niches and then appealing to them with precisely tailored digital messages. The advantages of this approach are obvious: An ad that calls for defunding Planned Parenthood might get a mixed response from a large national audience, but serve it directly via Facebook to 800 Roman Catholic women in Dubuque, Iowa, and its reception will be much more positive. If candidates once had to shout their campaign promises from a soapbox, micro-targeting allows them to sidle up to millions of voters and whisper personalized messages in their ear.
这项工作核心是在竞选中实施精准信息投放，做法是把选民进行切割分解为成不同的对象群，然后用量身定制的电子信息来感染他们。这种方法的优点很明显：比如把一个要求停止资助计划生育组织的政治广告在全国范围投放，得到的反响会正负不齐，但如果直接通过脸书将同样的政治广告其投放给爱荷华州迪比克市的800名（本来就反对计划生育的）罗马天主教妇女，广告的效应将大大提高。政治候选人曾经不得不在各种临时拼凑的演讲台上对选民喊叫自己的竞选承诺，现在的精准信息投放可以让他们温和的贴近千百万选民，在他们耳边窃窃私语专门为他们每个人定制的信息。
Parscale didn’t invent this practice—Barack Obama’s campaign famously used it in 2012, and Clinton’s followed suit. But Trump’s effort in 2016 was unprecedented, in both its scale and its brazenness. In the final days of the 2016 race, for example, Trump’s team tried to suppress turnout among black voters in Florida by slipping ads into their News Feeds that read, “Hillary Thinks African-Americans Are Super Predators.” An unnamed campaign official boasted to Bloomberg Businessweek that it was one of “three major voter suppression operations underway.” (The other two targeted young women and white liberals.)
帕斯卡尔并未发明这种做法，奥巴马的竞选委员会在2012年因采用了这种做法而蜚声，克林顿选举时也随之效仿。但是特朗普在2016年所做的努力无论是在规模还是在厚颜无耻上都史无前例。例如，在2016年竞选的最后几天，特朗普的团队在新闻传递中插入 “希拉里认为非裔美国人是超级性捕食者” 的广告，来试图抑制佛罗里达州黑人选民出来投票。一位不愿透露姓名的竞选官员跟彭博商业周刊吹嘘称这是 “正在进行中的三大抑制选民投票行动之一。” （其他两项抑制选民投票行动是针对年轻女性和白人自由派。）
The weaponization of micro-targeting was pioneered in large part by the data scientists at Cambridge Analytica. The firm began as part of a nonpartisan military contractor that used digital psyops to target terrorist groups and drug cartels. In Pakistan, it worked to thwart jihadist recruitment efforts; in South America, it circulated disinformation to turn drug dealers against their bosses.
把精准信息投放作为政治竞选武器的做法，在很大程度上是由剑桥分析公司（Cambridge Analytica）的数据科学家开创的。该公司最初是一个无党派军事承包商的一部分，该承包商针对恐怖组织和毒品集团实施电子心理战。在巴基斯坦，该承包商致力于制止圣战分子的招募工作。在南美，它通过信息误导的运作，使毒贩们反抗他们的老板。
The emphasis shifted once the conservative billionaire Robert Mercer became a major investor and installed Steve Bannon as his point man. Using a massive trove of data it had gathered from Facebook and other sources—without users’ consent—Cambridge Analytica worked to develop detailed “psychographic profiles” for every voter in the U.S., and began experimenting with ways to stoke paranoia and bigotry by exploiting certain personality traits. In one exercise, the firm asked white men whether they would approve of their daughter marrying a Mexican immigrant; those who said yes were asked a follow-up question designed to provoke irritation at the constraints of political correctness: “Did you feel like you had to say that?”
当保守派的亿万富翁罗伯特·默瑟（Robert Mercer）成为剑桥分析公司的一个主要投资人和安排史蒂夫·班农（Steve Bannon）为他的执行人之后，公司的业务重点就变了。在未经用户同意的情况下，剑桥分析公司利用从脸书和其他来源收集的大量数据，为美国每个选民开发了详细的“心理特征评估”，并开始实验利用每个人的人格特征来激发妄想症和偏执思想的方法。在一次操作中，公司询问白人男子是否同意女儿嫁给墨西哥移民。那些回答 “同意”的白人男子接着被问一个后续问题：“您觉得您是不得不说同意的吗？” 后一个问题是设计来激发人们对政治正确（注：美国政治正确的一个要求是彼此善待）的约束的不快。
Christopher Wylie, who was the director of research at Cambridge Analytica and later testified about the company to Congress, told me that “with the right kind of nudges,” people who exhibited certain psychological characteristics could be pushed into ever more extreme beliefs and conspiratorial thinking. “Rather than using data to interfere with the process of radicalization, Steve Bannon was able to invert that,” Wylie said. “We were essentially seeding an insurgency in the United States.”
克里斯托弗·怀里（Christopher Wylie）是剑桥分析公司的研究主任，后来为剑桥分析公司的事在国会作证。他跟我说，“通过适当的温柔轻推，” 那些具有某些心理特征的人可能会陷入更极端的信念和阴谋论思维中。怀里说：“本来我们是用数据来打破极端化的过程，史蒂夫·班农做到了反其道而行之，变成用数据在美国播种起义叛乱。”
Cambridge Analytica was dissolved in 2018, shortly after its CEO was caught on tape bragging about using bribery and sexual “honey traps” on behalf of clients. (The firm denied that it actually used such tactics.) Since then, some political scientists have questioned how much effect its “psychographic” targeting really had. But Wylie—who spoke with me from London, where he now works for H&M, as a fashion-trend forecaster—said the firm’s work in 2016 was a modest test run compared with what could come.
剑桥分析公司公司首席执行官自我吹嘘使用贿赂和性“蜜甜甜陷阱”帮客户处理业务，公司不久于2018年解散（该公司否认使用了这些策略）。后来有政治学家质疑其使用“心理标靶”实际的效果。剑桥分析公司前研究主任怀里现在在伦敦一家叫H＆M的公司做时尚趋势预测分析员，他跟我电话交流，认为剑桥分析公司2016年的工作，与这类公司今后可能的作为相比，只是小试牛刀而已。
“What happens if North Korea or Iran picks up where Cambridge Analytica left off?” he said, noting that plenty of foreign actors will be looking for ways to interfere in this year’s election. “There are countless hostile states that have more than enough capacity to quickly replicate what we were able to do … and make it much more sophisticated.” These efforts may not come only from abroad: A group of former Cambridge Analytica employees have formed a new firm that, according to the Associated Press, is working with the Trump campaign. (The firm has denied this, and a campaign spokesperson declined to comment.)
他说：“如果朝鲜或伊朗继承剑桥分析公司的衣钵，会发生什么情况？”他指出，许多外国势力将寻找干预今年美国大选的路径。“不计其数的敌视美国的国家拥有足够的能力来快速复制剑桥分析公司的实践，并做得更加高明。”这种努力可能不仅来自国外势力：根据美联社报道，一群剑桥分析公司的前雇员已经组建了新的公司，正在与特朗普竞选委员会合作。（该公司否认了这一点，特朗普竞选委员会拒绝置评。）
待续 2 和3 。。。。