模式匹配 (Pattern Matching)

Welcome back to Pattern Matching, OneZero’s weekly newsletter that puts the week’s most compelling tech stories in context.

欢迎回到 OneZero 每周的时事通讯 Pattern Matching ， 它将本周最引人注目的技术故事作为背景。

QAnon has become impossible to ignore. The bizarre, sprawling, right-wing conspiracy theory, which holds that a pseudonymous Trump ally known as Q is involved in a secret battle against a powerful globalist “deep state” linked to pedophilia and Satan worship, has been gathering adherents for years. Supercharged by the paranoia of a pandemic, it is now stoking real-world crimes, rallies, anti-mask movements, and even Congressional candidacies.

QAnon变得不可忽视。 奇怪的，蔓延的，右翼的阴谋论认为，一个名叫Q的假名特朗普盟友参与了一场与恋童癖和撒旦崇拜联系在一起的强大的全球主义“深层国家”的秘密斗争，多年来一直在追随者。 由于大流行病的妄想症，它现在加剧了现实世界中的犯罪，集会，反面具运动，甚至国会候选人。

At a time when the nation’s future depends on our ability to act collectively in the face of a deadly virus, not to mention a president who peddles conspiracy theories of his own, QAnon can no longer be dismissed as a fringe curiosity. It’s a threat to public health, safety, and livelihoods. And it’s being fueled by, among others, Facebook and YouTube.

在当t ^ hé国家的未来取决于我们在致命病毒面对集体行动，谈不上谁兜售自己的阴谋理论总统能力的时候，QAnon不再被斥为边缘的好奇心。 这是对公共健康，安全和生计的威胁。 Facebook和YouTube等推动了这一趋势。

But what if there were no Facebook and YouTube, no social media? Could there still be a QAnon? Would it get this big? In other words, to what extent are Facebook and other online platforms responsible for facilitating QAnon’s rise, as opposed to simply being the conduit for a conspiracy that could have just as easily spread by other means? The answer matters because it would tell us to what extent technology is part of the problem — and to what extent reforms of social platforms might be part of the solution.

但是，如果没有Facebook和YouTube，也没有社交媒体怎么办？ 还会有QAnon吗？ 它会变大吗？ 换句话说，Facebook和其他在线平台在多大程度上负责推动QAnon的崛起，而不是仅仅只是通过其他手段可以轻易传播的串谋的渠道？ 答案之所以重要，是因为它将告诉我们技术在多大程度上是问题的一部分，以及在多大程度上可以解决社会平台的问题。

模式 (The Pattern)

An internet conspiracy cracks mainstream politics.

互联网阴谋破坏了主流政治。

• If you’re looking for a QAnon explainer, you are in luck. In a barometer of just how influential the movement has become, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ABC News, the BBC, and numerous other outlets all published “What is QAnon?” stories this week. And while this isn’t always the case, the Wikipedia entry for QAnon is both well-written and well-sourced, making for a useful primer. The surge of attention comes as QAnon followers have been holding protests in cities across the country, committing real-world violence, flipping out over mask requirements, winning Republican primaries, and gaining the president’s tacit approval.

  如果您正在寻找QAnon解释器，那您很幸运。 从该运动的影响力来看，《 纽约时报》 ，《 华尔街日报》 ，《 美国广播公司新闻》 ， 英国广播公司以及许多其他媒体都发表了“什么是QAnon？”。 故事本周。 尽管情况并非总是如此，但QAnon的Wikipedia条目既写得很好，又来源广泛，为您提供了有用的入门知识。 人们关注的激增之际，QAnon追随者一直 保持在抗议活动在全国多个城市 ，提交 真实世界的暴力 ， 翻出来 了屏蔽要求， 赢得共和党初选中 ，并获得了 总统的默许 。

• On August 10, NBC News reported on an internal Facebook study that showed just how pervasive Q-related groups have become on the platform, with upwards of 3 million members. That came on the heels of recent reports from the New York Times and The Atlantic that trace its growing influence among young people on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. This week, Facebook announced it was taking down hundreds of Q-related groups, and restricting thousands more, following through on a promise it had made last month. (Twitter also cracked down recently.) In classically Facebookian fashion, the company also announced a matching crackdown on groups claiming affiliation with the far-left antifa movement.

  8月10日，NBC新闻 在Facebook的一项内部研究中进行了报道， 该研究显示了与Q相关的组织如何广泛渗透到平台上，成员超过300万。 在此之前， 《纽约时报》和《 大西洋 》最近的报道追踪了它在 TikTok和Instagram等平台上在年轻人中日益增长的影响力 。 本周， Facebook宣布 将撤消数百个与Q相关的小组 ，并限制数千个与Q相关的小组 ，以兑现上个月作出的承诺。 (Twitter 最近也遭到了镇压。 )该公司还以传统的Facebook方式宣布对声称与极左翼反法运动有从属关系的团体进行相应的镇压 。

• There is no question that social media has fanned QAnon’s spread. The person or people claiming to be Q originally communicated via posts on the online message board 4chan. In 2018, NBC News chronicled how it spread from there to YouTube, Reddit, and eventually Facebook, as a small cadre of promoters pumped up a niche subculture into a mass movement. The New York Times’ Charlie Warzel makes the case that Facebook and YouTube’s recommendation algorithms played a key role in QAnon’s dramatic growth in recent months, steering users to QAnon groups and content if they showed even the slightest interest or susceptibility to conspiracy thinking. “While the social media platforms didn’t create QAnon, they created the conditions for it to thrive,” he writes.

  毫无疑问，社交媒体煽动了QAnon的传播。 声称是Q的人最初是通过在线留言板4chan上的帖子传达的。 在2018年， NBC新闻记录了它如何从那里传播到YouTube，Reddit以及最终到Facebook，因为一小群推动者将利基亚文化注入了群众运动。 纽约时报 ( New York Times)的查理·沃泽(Charlie Warzel)认为，Facebook和YouTube的推荐算法在QAnon最近几个月的快速增长中起着关键作用，如果用户对QAnon团体和内容表现出丝毫兴趣或对阴谋思维的敏感性，就会将他们引向QAnon群体和内容。 他写道：“尽管社交媒体平台并未创建QAnon，但它们为它蓬勃发展创造了条件。”

• Conspiracy theories are not a new phenomenon, of course; the “Satanic panics,” the blood libel, and many others long predate today’s chaotic media environment. It’s worth asking, then, how a movement such as QAnon might have spread in the pre-social media era. For insight, I spoke with Syracuse professor Whitney Phillips, co-author of a new book about conspiracy theories and “information pollution,” called You Are Here. The book traces the origins of the “deep memetic frames” behind conspiracies such as QAnon as far back as Ephesians 6:12, which teaches that Christians are locked in battle with “spiritual wickedness in high places.” In particular, evangelical networks in the United States spread conspiracies about Satanism, which they often linked to Communism, on a gradually widening scale beginning in the 1950s and 1960s.

  当然， 阴谋论并不是一个新现象 。 “撒旦恐慌”，血腥诽谤以及许多其他事情早于当今混乱的媒体环境。 那么，值得一提的是，诸如QAnon之类的运动在前社会媒体时代如何传播。 为了获得见识，我与锡拉丘兹教授惠特尼·菲利普斯(Whitney Phillips)进行了交谈，他是一本关于阴谋理论和“信息污染”的新书的合著者，名为《你在这里》 。 该书追溯了诸如QAnon之类的阴谋背后的“深层模因框架”的起源，可追溯到以弗所书6:12，该教义教导基督徒被困在“高处的精神邪恶”的战斗中。 特别是，美国的福音派网络从1950年代和1960年代开始逐渐扩大与撒旦主义的阴谋，这些阴谋经常与共产主义联系在一起。

• Early on, the stories relied on word of mouth, newsletters, recorded sermons, and direct mailers, flourishing mostly in rural communities. The leap from niche to mass movement was the result of what Phillips and co-author Ryan Milner call “network climate change.” The information environment evolved rapidly in the second half of the 20th Century, they explain, with the advent of “read/write media” such as home video cameras, audio recorders, and photocopiers that allowed individuals to become producers and publishers of content. The advent of VHS tapes, grassroots radio networks, and eventually cable TV allowed for targeted media on a national scale. The Satanic panics finally made their way to daytime network TV shows like Geraldo in the 1980s.

  早期，这些故事依靠口耳相传，时事通讯，记录的讲道和直接寄送的邮件，这些邮件大多在农村地区盛行。 菲利普斯(Phillips)和合著者赖安·米尔纳(Ryan Milner)称之为“网络气候变化”，是从利基向大众运动的飞跃的结果。 他们解释说，随着“读/写媒体”的出现，例如家用摄像机，录音机和影印机的出现，信息环境在20世纪下半叶Swift发展，使个人成为了内容的生产者和出版者。 VHS磁带，基层广播网络以及有线电视的问世使全国范围内的目标媒体成为可能。 撒旦的恐慌终于进入了1980年代的Geraldo这样的白天网络电视节目。

• Social media, in that context, marks the culmination of a decades-long trend toward the democratization of content, which has had both salutary and disconcerting effects. We’re now living through a “full-blown network crisis,” Phillips and Milner argue, as automated recommendation systems feed on people’s biases and insecurities to keep them engaged. The rise of Facebook and YouTube as mainstream news sources in their own right has enabled conspiracies to spread farther, faster, and obliterated the barriers that used to keep them siloed from mainstream audiences. “As much as those conspiracy theories were circulating” in the 1960s and 1970s, Phillips told me, “they were confined to people who were actually seeking them out. The difference now is that conspiracy theories come to you even if you’re not looking for them.”

  在这种情况下，社交媒体标志着内容民主化数十年来的趋势的顶点，这种趋势既有益又令人不安。 菲利普斯(Phillips)和米尔纳(Milner)认为， 我们现在正处于“全面的网络危机”中 ，自动化推荐系统依靠人们的偏见和不安全感来保持他们的参与度。 Facebook和YouTube本身已成为主流新闻资源的崛起，使阴谋得以传播得更远，更快，并消除了使他们远离主流受众的障碍。 菲利普斯对我说：“在1960年代和1970年代流传的阴谋论之多”，“它们仅限于实际寻找它们的人。 现在的区别是，即使您不寻找阴谋论，您也会发现它们。”

• After the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand last year, the Verge’s Casey Newton drew a distinction between “platform problems” and “internet problems.” Platform problems are those that stem from the peculiar dynamics of a given site or network: the types of messages its constraints and algorithms incentivize and amplify. Internet problems arise simply by virtue of the ability for people around the world to connect instantaneously, and would persist in some form no matter what a given platform does. Diagnosing the category of problem is essential for addressing it, because you can’t solve an internet problem at the level of a given platform.

  去年在新西兰克赖斯特彻奇(Christchurch)大屠杀之后， 濒临灭绝的凯西·牛顿(Casey Newton)在 “平台问题”和“互联网问题” 之间做出了区分 。 平台问题是由给定站点或网络的特殊动态引起的：消息的类型，其约束和算法会激励和放大。 互联网问题的出现仅仅是由于世界各地人们的即时连接能力，无论给定平台做什么，互联网问题都会以某种形式持续存在。 诊断问题类别对于解决该问题至关重要，因为您无法在给定平台级别解决互联网问题。

• The long history of conspiracy theories suggests the need for a third category: human problems. These are problems that might well manifest on social media in the social media age, but would have just as easily manifested on radio, in pamphlets, or around campfires in earlier eras. That’s part of what internet culture writer Brian Feldman was driving at in his (quite good) newsletter Bnet last week, when he distanced himself from the hand-wringing coverage of conspiracy theories that he finds de rigeur on the tech beat. “I don’t really care about stuff like fake news and QAnon, which is just the latest in a long history of right-wing fanaticism,” he wrote. (He acknowledged that was “painting with a very broad brush.”)

  阴谋理论的悠久历史表明，需要第三类：人类问题。 这些问题在社交媒体时代很可能会在社交媒体上体现出来，但在早期的广播，小册子或篝火旁也很容易体现出来。 这就是互联网文化作家布莱恩·费尔德曼(Brian Feldman)上周在其(非常好的)时事通讯Bnet中所推动的部分内容，当时他远离了他在技术上必不可少的阴谋论理论的令人发指的报道。 他写道：“我真的不关心假新闻和QAnon之类的东西，这只是右翼狂热历史悠久的最新消息。” (他承认那是“用非常广泛的画笔绘画”。)

• QAnon is a human problem, no doubt. But as Phillips argues, it’s one that is heavily modulated by the structure of our communication systems. The more personalized, the more democratized, the more optimized for engagement and agnostic to truth value our mass media become, the more we can expect wild conspiracies to infiltrate mainstream politics and culture. There will always be people susceptible to believe that shadowy cabals of Satanists (or whatever) are to blame for the complex problems of a changing world, which would otherwise be hard to understand. Whether society’s most influential information sources are calibrated to dissuade people of these notions, or to utterly convince them and endlessly reinforce this conviction, helps to determine just how influential those ideas will become.

  毫无疑问，QAnon是一个人类问题。 但是，正如菲利普斯(Phillips)所说，这是受到我们的通信系统结构严重调节的一种。 个性化程度越高，民主化程度越高，对参与度和对真理的不可知论价值的优化就越多，我们可以预料到更多的阴谋会渗入主流政治和文化。 总会有人相信撒旦主义者(或任何其他人)的阴谋集团应为不断变化的世界的复杂问题负责，否则这将很难理解。 是否对社会上最有影响力的信息源进行了校准，以劝阻人们不要使用这些概念，或者完全说服他们并不断强化这种信念，这有助于确定这些想法将产生多大的影响力。

• This implies that Facebook and Twitter belatedly rooting out QAnon accounts and pages, while perhaps welcome in some respects, is unlikely to solve much in the long run. The problem is not the existence of the pages or the hashtags, but the underlying design of the algorithmic feeds and recommendation engines that amplify them. Even if the platforms manage to suppress QAnon, which seems unlikely, the memetic frame behind it — the same frame that drove the earlier PizzaGate, Seth Rich, and Satanic ritual abuse conspiracies — will eventually manifest in some new form.

  这意味着Facebook和Twitter迟来了QAnon帐户和页面，尽管它们在某些方面受到欢迎，但从长远来看不太可能解决很多问题 。 问题不在于页面或主题标签的存在，而在于算法提要和放大它们的推荐引擎的基础设计。 即使平台设法抑制QAnon(这似乎不太可能)，其背后的模因框架(推动了早期的PizzaGate，Seth Rich和Satanic仪式性滥用阴谋的框架)最终也会以某种新形式出现。

暗流 (Undercurrents)

Under-the-radar trends, stories, and random anecdotes worth your time

雷达下的趋势，故事和随机轶事值得您花费时间

• Big Tech is the biggest it’s ever been. If that sentence sounds familiar, it’s because it has been true at pretty much every moment of the past decade. Yet the constancy of the largest tech companies’ growth shouldn’t be a reason to overlook it, and it has accelerated dramatically during the pandemic. This week, Apple became the first company to reach a market capitalization of $2 trillion. The New York Times used the milestone as an excuse to take a step back and look at just how powerful tech’s largest players have become, and why it matters. I explored similar themes, focusing on Amazon, in Pattern Matching last month.

  大技术是有史以来最大的技术 。 如果这句话听起来很熟悉，那是因为在过去十年中的几乎每个时刻都是如此。 然而，最大的科技公司的持续增长不应成为忽视这一增长的原因，而且在大流行期间增长速度已大大加快。 苹果公司本周成为首家市值达到2万亿美元的公司。 《 纽约时报》以这个里程碑为借口，退后一步，看看科技最大的参与者已经变得多么强大 ，以及为什么如此重要。 上个月 ，我在Pattern Matching中探索了类似的主题，重点是Amazon。

• Flight Simulator 2020 is hyperrealistic — except when it isn’t. The latest title to strike a chord with gamers in the pandemic, Microsoft’s newest flight simulator uses 3D mapping data to deliver “uncanny escapism,” giving homebound gamers the feeling of exploring the world, Wired’s Cecilia D’Anastasio explains. What’s so uncanny about it? Well, for one thing, the otherwise hyperrealistically rendered landscape of suburban Melbourne, Australia is pierced by a pencil-thin 212-story skyscraper, apparently due to a university student’s two-year-old typo in OpenStreetMap data.

  Flight Simulator 2020是超现实的，除非不是。 《 连线 》杂志的塞西莉亚·达纳斯塔西奥(Cecilia D'Anastasio)解释说，微软最新的飞行模拟器使用3D映射数据来传递“怪异的逃避现实”，使居家游戏的玩家有探索世界的感觉。 这有什么不可思议的？ 好吧，一方面，澳大利亚郊区墨尔本的超现实渲染景观被铅笔薄的212层摩天大楼刺穿，这显然是由于大学生在OpenStreetMap数据中使用了两年的错字造成的 。

• A police network of license-plate readers is going national, Cnet’s Alfred Ng reports. For all of the justified attention that the tech press has paid to the way private internet companies track us online, the ability of law enforcement to track every vehicle in the country automatically, wherever it goes, is a momentous shift in the privacy landscape that has probably not received as much attention as it deserves.

  Cnet的Alfred Ng报告说 ，警察牌照读者网络正在全国范围内 。 尽管科技媒体对私人互联网公司在网上跟踪我们的方式给予了所有合理的关注，但是执法部门能够自动跟踪该国每辆车的能力(无论走到哪里)，已在隐私领域发生了重大变化。可能没有得到应有的重视。

本周头条 (Headlines of the Week)

Wait, How Much Microplastic Is Swirling in the Atlantic? — Matt Simon, Wired

等等，大西洋上有多少微塑性旋流？ - 有线的 Matt Simon

Hulu Deepfaked Its New Ad. It Won’t Be the Last.

Hulu Deepfaked其新广告。 不会是最后的。

— Janko Roettgers, Protocol

— Janko Roettgers， 协议

An Influencer House Wouldn’t Stop Partying. So L.A. Cut Its Power

影响者之家不会停止聚会。 所以洛杉矶削减了权力

— Taylor Lorenz, New York Times

-泰勒·洛伦兹， 《纽约时报》