对于很多准备考雅思的同学来说，不知道准备得怎么样呢？今天就和出国留学网的小编一起来了解一下雅思阅读素材：Facebook是如何失控的？
对于Facebook此次的数据助选丑闻，FT专栏作家John Gapper提出，Facebook的快速发展得益于它把用户的强纽带与弱纽带混在一起，但弱纽带发挥的强大影响也变成该平台的缺陷。
雅思双语阅读：
In Walt Disney’s Fantasia， the apprentice Mickey Mouse bashfully hands back the sorcerer’s hat after failing to stop a troupe of magic broomsticks from causing a flood. Mark Zuckerberg made his own bow to the US Congress last Tuesday by apologising for the havoc that he has unleashed at Facebook.
在华特迪士尼（Walt Disney）的《幻想曲》（Fantasia）中，魔法师的学徒“米老鼠”（Mickey Mouse）在未能阻止一群被施了魔法的扫把引发洪水后，扭捏地把魔法帽还给了魔法师。上周二，马克•扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）也在美国国会上演了这一幕，为他在Facebook造成的烂摊子道歉。
With greater effort and honesty， Facebook can fix the laxity with which it has handled personal data. The Cambridge Analytica scandal showed that it was far too loose in allowing people and organisations to plug into its “social graph” and extract data about millions of users. It has already tightened its data controls and must tighten them more， but the task is achievable.
通过采取更多措施和拿出更诚恳的态度，Facebook可以解决它处理个人数据不严谨的问题。剑桥分析（Cambridge Analytica）丑闻表明，Facebook允许个人和机构接入Facebook的“社交图谱”并提取数以百万计用户的个人信息，是极其严重的疏漏。Facebook已经收紧了对数据的控制，它还须加大力度，不过该任务是可以完成的。
But other things cannot be fixed because they are beyond Mr Zuckerberg’s control， lost in myriad encounters among Facebook’s 2bn users. The technical term is emergence， the powerful and unpredictable outcome of millions of users interacting freely with others. Anything from joke videos to fake news can spread like a virus， changing how people feel and act.
但仍然有很多其他问题无法解决，因为这些问题已经不在扎克伯格可控制的范围内，而是散落于Facebook的20亿用户无数的接触中。准确地说是“自然生长”，即无数用户自由互动所带来的强大而不可预测的后果。无论是搞笑视频、还是虚假新闻，一切都可能像病毒一样传播，改变着人们的想法和行动。
Mr Zuckerberg has been subdued by witnessing his creation cause chaos. Facebook was tapped by anti-Rohingya Buddhists in Myanmar and Russian fake news factories. No higher authority holds the solution. The EU and the US may impose stricter rules on social networks， but politicians and regulators have no deeper insight into Facebook’s workings than its founder.
扎克伯格目睹了他的作品所造成的混乱却束手无策。Facebook被反罗兴亚人的缅甸佛教徒和俄罗斯的假新闻制造厂所利用。当局也没有解决方案。欧盟（EU）和美国可能会对社交网络执行更严格的监管规则，但政客和监管者对Facebook运作方式的了解并不比其创始人更深。
Facebook increasingly talks of trying to limit the amount of passive consumption by users， from reading news （fake and otherwise） to watching videos. Instead， it wants to nudge them back to the kind of interactions with which it started — “to stay connected to the people they love， make their voices heard， and build communities and businesses”， Mr Zuckerberg says.
Facebook开始越来越多地讨论起试图限制用户的被动摄入——从阅读新闻（假新闻以及真新闻）到观看视频。相反，它希望促使用户重新像Facebook创建之初那样互动——“与他们喜欢的人保持联系，发出自己的声音，并建立社区和企业，”扎克伯格表示。
That may be prudent， but it does not get to the heart of the matter： Facebook grew by intentionally mixing up what Mark Granovetter， the US sociologist， called “strong ties” with weak ones. The former are close relationships among families， friends and colleagues； the latter are links to distant acquaintances and people in other communities. On Facebook， all “friends” are equal.
这可能是经过深思熟虑之举，但它并没有触及问题的核心：Facebook过去的发展是通过有意识地把美国社会学家马克•格拉诺维特（Mark Granovetter）所说的“强纽带”与弱纽带混在一起实现的。前者是家人、朋友和同事之间亲近的关系；后者是与一般熟人和其他社区的人之间的联系。在Facebook上，所有的“朋友”都是平等的。
Facebook’s size makes it more weakly tied than social networks that focus on smaller communities. One analysis of 957，000 Facebook users and 59m connections （gathered before it limited data scraping） found that “most connections are weak . . . with few contacts and infrequent interactions”. That made it “a powerful way to transfer information across large social distances and to wide segments”.
Facebook的规模使得它比其他专注于中小型社区的社交网络更加偏向于弱纽带。一项研究了95.7万Facebook用户及其5900万个联系人（在Facebook限制数据抓取之前收集的数据）的分析发现，“大多数联系人属于弱纽带 ……联系很少、互动也不频繁”。这使得Facebook成为了“跨越广阔社会距离和向大量领域传递信息的有力方式”。
Hundreds of millions of weak ties also make it a powerful way to wield influence. Studies show that people’s mood， behaviour， and even weight are affected by others who are fairly weakly connected in a social network — Profs Christakis and Fowler refer to the “three degrees of influence” that friends of friends of friends can invisibly exert.
大量的弱纽带也使Facebook成为了施展影响力的有力途径。多项研究表明，人们的情绪、行为、甚至体重都会受到社交网络中联系相对较弱的熟人的影响——克里斯塔基斯和福勒教授提到你的朋友的朋友的朋友可以在无形中发挥的“三维度影响力”。
This is the trouble with Facebook’s elision of families and acquaintances， of strong and weak ties. The latter can make users happy or depressed； can help them to lose weight or gain it； can deliver insight or misinformation. Good and ill both multiply across its emergent， disobedient network.
这是Facebook把强纽带的家人和弱纽带的一般熟人混在一起所面临的问题。后者可以影响用户的心情、可以促使他们减肥或者增重、可以向他们传递真知灼见或错误信息。在Facebook自然生长且不服管理的庞大网络中，善意和恶意的效果都被数倍放大。
The sorcerer cleaned up Mickey’s mess but Mr Zuckerberg has not yet handed in his wizard’s hat. “It’s not enough to connect people， we have to make sure those connections are positive，” he told members of Congress on Tuesday. That is a fine pledge， but it would take magic to fulfil it.
魔法师收拾了米老鼠的烂摊子，但扎克伯格目前还没有交出他的魔法帽。周二，他对国会议员说：“仅仅把人们联系起来还不够，我们必须确保这些联系发挥积极作用。”誓言虽然美好，但他得有魔法才能实现。
雅思阅读高频词汇
apprentice [ə＇prentɪs] n. 学徒；徒弟
例句：Back in the Qing Dynasty， a drug store apprentice was always scolded by his boss. He had to bear the insult for fear of losing the job. 清朝的时候，有一个药店，店里配药的小伙计常常挨老板的骂，他怕丢了饭碗，只好忍气吞声。
bashfully [＇bæʃfuli] adv. 羞怯地；扭捏地
例句：＂A lot of error， ＂ he underscored， looking bashfully at the floor of a workroom at Parsons and chuckling. “无数次失败，”他又一次强调，窘迫不安地看着他位于帕森学院的工作室的地板。
havoc [＇hævək] n. 大破坏；浩劫
例句：There is no obvious prospect of a rapid jump in short-term interest rates of the kind that caused havoc for banks in 1994. 在1994年，短期利率的迅速上升，曾让银行业遭受重大冲击，但目前尚无明显迹象表明这种情况将再次出现。
unleash [ʌn＇liːʃ] vt. 发泄；突然释放；使爆发
例句：It was the start of a chain reaction that this summer unleashed a fierce backlash from regulators and local banks. 此后出现了一系列连锁反应，到了今年夏天，中国监管机构和本土银行发出了强烈的反弹。
subdue [səb＇djuː] vt. 征服；抑制；减轻
例句：The International Monetary Fund said the softer data pointed to a more subdued recovery. 国际货币基金组织（IMF）认为，数据走软预示复苏脚步可能更为迟滞。
laxity [＇læksətɪ] n. 松驰；放纵
例句：Applied loosely， these suggestions would be a licence for laxity. 若不加约束地实施，这些规定可能成为懒惰者的通行证。
myriad [＇mɪrɪəd] adj. 无数的 n. 无数，极大数量
例句：The role of the course is to help you to identify which of the details hidden in the myriad of facts comprising each case are most relevant. 本堂课的角色就是帮助你确认哪些隐含在每篇个案所组成大量的事例背后的细节是有意义的。
nudge [nʌdʒ] vt. 推进；用肘轻推；向…不停地唠叨
例句：Past them and between them nudged cars， vans and other trucks carrying furniture， women in burqas ， open loads of cows and donkeys. 小汽车、面包车和其他一些卡车夹杂其间，缓缓从它们旁边经过，车上载着家具和戴着面纱的伊斯兰妇女，还有不加遮盖的奶牛和驴子。
prudent [＇pruːd（ə）nt] adj. 谨慎的；精明的；节俭的
例句：But the company said it was continuing to “consider all [potential fundraising] options as is only prudent”. 但该公司表示，为“谨慎起见”，将继续“考虑所有（潜在的融资）选择”。
intentionally [ɪn＇tɛnʃənəli] adv. 有意地，有计划地
例句：In a 2002 will signed by Michael Jackson， he said he had ＂intentionally omitted＂ to provide for Rowe. 杰克逊在2002年留下的遗嘱中明确指出，他“有意”将前妻罗伊排除在财产继承人之外。
acquaintance [ə＇kweɪnt（ə）ns] n. 熟人；相识，了解
例句：Last week I had lunch with an acquaintance and by way of making conversation， I said I was about to celebrate 25 years at the newspaper. 上周和一位熟人共进午餐时，我没话找话地说，我就要庆祝在英国《金融时报》呆满25年了。
scrape [skreɪp] vt. 刮；擦伤
例句：Instead， an inquiry revealed he had scraped the name off a Motorola product and claimed the work as his own. 而实际上，一项调查披露，他只是刮掉摩托罗拉（Motorola）某款产品上的名称，将其据为己有。
wield [wiːld] vt. 使用；运用；掌握
例句：To many looking on at Germany in now Ms Merkel may seem to wield the same adamantine handbag. 对于很多现在关注德国的人而言，默克尔似乎也会挥起同样坚硬无比的手袋这样说。
elision [ɪ＇lɪʒ（ə）n] n. 省略；省音
例句：Shakespeare freely used elisions， novel syntax and several thousand made-up words （his own name was signed in six different ways）. 莎士比亚随意使用的省音、新奇句法和数千个自造词（他的名字便有6种不同的签法）。
emergent [ɪ＇mɜːdʒ（ə）nt] adj. 自然发生的；紧急的
例句：It was an exciting time because there was so much emergent literature， poetry， applied arts and film. 那是一段激动人心的时光，因为有那么多新兴的文学、诗歌、应用美术和电影等艺术形态。
pledge [pledʒ] vt. 保证，许诺；用……抵押
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