马斯克440亿美元收购推特
近日，推特公司接受了埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）的收购协议。据了解，马斯克将以约440亿美元的价格收购推特。
无注释原文：
Twitter Under Elon Musk Will Be a Scary Place
The New York Times
Twitter has never been a place for rational, nuanced speech. Expect it to get much, much worse.
The decision by Twitter’s board of directors on Monday afternoon to accept a takeover bid from Elon Musk means the company thinks the social media company would be best served by the ownership of a man who uses the platform to slime his critics, body-shame people, defy securities laws and relentlessly hawk cryptocurrencies.
Mr. Musk said that central to his vision for the service is for it to be an “inclusive arena for free speech,” but users should understand what that phrase means: It means free speech for people like Mr. Musk, a billionaire and the world’s richest man. Even as Twitter’s board on Monday was debating his offer of $54.20 per share, which it accepted, Mr. Musk was setting the tone for his leadership by tweeting that Securities and Exchange Commission officials were “shameless puppets.”
Mr. Musk has not been a responsible caretaker for the companies he already oversees: Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and the Boring Company. In the early months of the pandemic, Mr. Musk thumbed his nose at health officials — whose shelter-in-place orders he called “fascist” — by forcing workers at Tesla back on the job, in violation of local health regulations. And Tesla has been dogged for years by allegations of racist abuse, discrimination and sexual harassment at its factory in Fremont, Calif., where six women say they suffered catcalling and unwanted touching and advances. The company has said it does not tolerate such behavior.
Several former SpaceX interns made similar allegations about a lax attitude toward sexual harassment by supervisors and peers, The New York Times reported. The company has said it is investigating the allegations.
A California regulator, meanwhile, recently sued the company over reports of racial discrimination against hundreds of employees, including a lack of promotion opportunities and the use of racial slurs by supervisors. According to a civil suit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing in California Superior Court in Alameda County, Mr. Musk told workers to be “thick skinned” about suffering racist harassment while on the job. Tesla has denied the allegations.
No wonder many Twitter employees are aghast at the prospect of Mr. Musk leading the company.
Certainly, Twitter could benefit from some improvements to its service. Its rules are enforced unevenly; it is filled with racist trolling, harassment and misinformation. Politicians and celebrities also seem to enjoy a lighter touch from Twitter’s enforcement of its policies against misinformation, despite the evidence that they are more likely to be believed than regular users. Twitter’s usual approach to moderating content has been to slap warning labels on tweets, which are easy to ignore and don’t mitigate the damage done by misinformation.
Before and after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Donald Trump used Twitter to whip his followers into a frenzy. The company rightfully barred Mr. Trump from Twitter for his role in that shameful episode, but it had turned a blind eye to similar behavior for years.
Into that toxic stew comes Mr. Musk. He has called someone he disagrees with “pedo guy,” made jokes about women’s anatomy and was forced to delete a union-busting message aimed at his factory workers — all on the platform he’ll soon own.
Loosening content moderation, as Mr. Musk appears poised to do, won’t make Twitter a better place; that will make it far more toxic. Under the notion that more speech is the best antidote to harmful speech, earnest users can probably expect to be shouted down even more frequently by trolls and bots. (I am hopeful Mr. Musk was serious when he said he’ll “defeat the spam bots or die trying!”)
Female Twitter users, in particular, ought to worry about whether Mr. Musk will bring his apparent disdain for women to the company he is about to own. Twitter is already a toxic place for women who use it, particularly those of color.
And the whole world should be concerned that Mr. Musk might reinstate Mr. Trump, who has so adroitly used social media platforms to spread dangerous Covid misinformation, mock his enemies and cast doubt on the integrity of free and fair elections. Mr. Trump said Monday he would not return to Twitter if allowed back on, in favor of his Truth Social network, but, of course, the former president has reneged on many promises.
Mr. Musk is correct that Twitter has become a de facto public square. But consider the fate of another public square led by a billionaire with no real check on his power: Facebook. Leaks over the past year have shown that Meta, under Mark Zuckerberg’s leadership, has overlooked evidence that hurtful comments on the company’s platforms caused emotional harm to teenagers and increased users’ anxiety and anger. The company knows its algorithms are deeply flawed, but because Mr. Zuckerberg holds a controlling share of votes on the board, external and internal pressure on the company to change how they are designed and deployed has proved futile.
Perhaps Jack Dorsey, one of Twitter’s co-founders and a board member, should have trusted his instincts when he tweeted that he doesn’t “believe any individual or institutions should own social media, or more generally media companies.”
Mr. Musk has said that he doesn’t care about the economics of his deal for Twitter. He may need that attitude if, as some expect, the platform becomes a free-for-all and advertisers abandon it.
Where can people go if they don’t like what Twitter turns into under Mr. Musk? New social media networks promising a free-speech alternative to Twitter have so far failed to gain traction, notably Truth Social among them.
As with the motives for establishing those competitors, Mr. Musk’s reasons for taking control of Twitter aren’t about free speech; it’s about controlling a megaphone. With his legion of fans, Mr. Musk will command a gigantic megaphone and be free to plug his own investments, pooh-pooh sound health regulations and shout down critics.
Speaking freely: Does that sound like a better place?
- ◆ -
注：中文文本为纽约时报官方译文，仅供参考
含注释全文：
Twitter Under Elon Musk Will Be a Scary Place
被马斯克收购的Twitter只会变得更糟
The New York Times
Twitter has never been a place for rational, nuanced speech. Expect it to get much, much worse.
Twitter从来不是一个发表理性、细致言论的地方。情况有可能会变得更糟。
rational
表示“头脑清醒的；理智的”，英文解释为“based on clear thought and reason”举个🌰：
There must be some rational explanation for what happened.
对发生的事一定有一个理性的解释。
nuanced
nuanced /ˈnjuː.ɑːnst/ 形容词，是由它的名词nuance /njuːˈɑːns/派生而来，表示“（在外表、意义、感觉、声音等上）有细微差別的”举个🌰：
Opinion polls tell a more nuanced story.
民意调查中可以发现更微妙的结果。
The decision by Twitter’s board of directors on Monday afternoon to accept a takeover bid from Elon Musk means the company thinks the social media company would be best served by the ownership of a man who uses the platform to slime his critics, body-shame people, defy securities laws and relentlessly hawk cryptocurrencies.
Twitter董事会周一下午决定接受伊隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）的收购要约，这意味着，该公司认为这个社交媒体公司最好由一个使用该平台来污蔑其批评者、对他人进行身体羞辱、藐视证券法和肆无忌惮地兜售加密货币的人拥有。
takeover
表示“接管，收购”，通常指公司，英文解释为“A takeover is the act of gaining control of a company by buying more of its shares than anyone else.”举个🌰：
They were involved in a takeover last year.
去年他们参与了一家公司的收购。
bid
bid作名词，1）可表示“努力争取；努力；竞争；努力尝试；企图得到”，英文解释为“A bid for something or a bid to do something is an attempt to obtain it or do it. An effort to do sth or to obtain sth”，如：a bid for power 权力之争，举个🌰：
Her bid for re-election was unsuccessful.
她争取连任的努力没有成功。
📍2001年7月13日北京申奥成功，就是won the bid in 2001. 申奥，奥运会申办，the bid for the Olympic Games. 竞选总统（白宫），说的是the bid for the White House.
2）表示“买方的出价”，英文解释为“an offer by a person or a business company to pay a particular amount of money for sth”举个🌰：
Granada mounted a hostile takeover bid for Forte.
格兰纳达公司向福特公司出价进行敌意收购。
3）表示“投标”，英文解释为“an offer to do work or provide a service for a particular price, in competition with other companies, etc.”举个🌰：
The company submitted a bid for the contract to clean the hospital.
该公司投标承包这所医院的清洁工作。
defy
1）表示“违抗；反抗；蔑视”，英文解释为“to refuse to obey or show respect for sb in authority, a law, a rule, etc.”举个🌰：
I wouldn't have dared to defy my teachers.
我可不敢不听老师的话。/跟老师作对。
2）defy belief/explanation/description 表示“不可能，无法（相信、解释、描绘等）”，英文解释为“to be impossible or almost impossible to believe, explain, describe, etc.”举个🌰：
The chaos at that place defies description.
那个地方一片混乱，难以用语言形容。
🎬电影《爱丽丝梦游仙境》（Alice in Wonderland）中的台词提到：There's things in these woods that defy imagination. 树林里有你无法想象的东西。
security
复数形式securities，熟词僻义，表示“证券”，英文解释为“documents proving that sb is the owner of shares, etc. in a particular company”。
hawk
hawk /hɔːk/ 表示“沿街兜售，叫卖”，英文解释为“to sell goods informally in public places”举个🌰：
On every street corner there were traders hawking their wares.
每个街角都有商贩在兜售商品。
cryptocurrency
cryptocurrency /ˈkrɪptoʊkɜːrənsi/ 表示“（公共网络的，而非政府发行的）加密电子货币（使用加密法确保付款安全支付及收取）”，实际就是加密货币，英文解释为“a digital currency produced by a public network, rather than any government, that uses cryptography to make sure payments are sent and received safely”，如：cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin 诸如比特币一类的加密电子货币。
📍详见：鱿鱼币，从暴涨到跑路
Mr. Musk said that central to his vision for the service is for it to be an “inclusive arena for free speech,” but users should understand what that phrase means: It means free speech for people like Mr. Musk, a billionaire and the world’s richest man. Even as Twitter’s board on Monday was debating his offer of $54.20 per share, which it accepted, Mr. Musk was setting the tone for his leadership by tweeting that Securities and Exchange Commission officials were “shameless puppets.”
马斯克说，他对Twitter的设想核心是让它成为一个“包容的言论自由舞台”，但用户应该理解这个词的含义：它意味着像马斯克这样的亿万富翁和世界首富可以拥有言论自由。周一，就在Twitter的董事会讨论他提出的每股54.20美元的报价时，马斯克发推说证券交易委员会官员是“无耻的傀儡”，为他的领导风格定下了基调，后来他的报价被接受了。
arena
arena /əˈriːnə/ 表示“（体育比赛或表演用的）场地，竞技场，剧场；斗争场所；竞争舞台；活动场所”，英文解释为“a large, flat area surrounded by seats used for sports or entertainment”如：an Olympic/a sports arena 奥运会/运动会比赛场地，the international arena 国际舞台。
puppet
puppet /ˈpʌpɪt/ 1）表示“傀儡”，英文解释为“a person or group whose actions are controlled by someone else”；
2）表示“木偶”，英文解释为“a toy in the shape of a person or animal that you can move with strings or by putting your hand inside”。
Mr. Musk has not been a responsible caretaker for the companies he already oversees: Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and the Boring Company. In the early months of the pandemic, Mr. Musk thumbed his nose at health officials — whose shelter-in-place orders he called “fascist” — by forcing workers at Tesla back on the job, in violation of local health regulations. And Tesla has been dogged for years by allegations of racist abuse, discrimination and sexual harassment at its factory in Fremont, Calif., where six women say they suffered catcalling and unwanted touching and advances. The company has said it does not tolerate such behavior.
对于他已经负责管理的特斯拉、SpaceX、Neuralink和无聊公司这些企业来说，马斯克并不是一个负责任的管理人。在大流行最初几个月，马斯克对卫生官员嗤之以鼻——他称居家隔离（shelter-in-place）令是“法西斯主义”——他违反当地的卫生法规，强迫特斯拉的员工重返工作岗位。多年来，特斯拉在加州弗蒙特的工厂一直被指控存在种族主义辱骂、歧视和性骚扰，那里有六名女性表示，她们遭到了起哄、违背其意愿的触碰和挑逗。该公司表示不会容忍这种行为。
thumb your nose at sb/sth
表示“对…嗤之以鼻，蔑视”，英文解释为“to show no respect, or to raise the end of your thumb to the end of your nose to show that you do not respect someone”举个🌰：
He has thumbed his nose at authority all his life.
他一生都藐视权威。
shelter-in-place
表示“居家避疫，就地避难”，英文解释为“Shelter-in-place (SIP; also known as a shelter-in-place warning) is the act of seeking safety within the building one already occupies, rather than evacuating the area or seeking a community emergency shelter.”
fascist
作名词，表示“法西斯主义者”，英文解释为“someone who supports fascism”；
作形容词，表示“（基于或支持）法西斯主义的”，英文解释为“based on or supporting fascism”如：fascist groups 法西斯主义团体。
dog
熟词僻义，作动词，表示“（长期）困扰，折磨，纠缠”，英文解释为“to cause you trouble for a long time”举个🌰：
He had been dogged by bad health all his life.
他一生多病，备受折磨。
catcall
表示“（尤指人群中表示反对的）尖叫声，嘘声，口哨声”，英文解释为“a loud shout or whistle (= high sound) expressing disapproval, especially made by people in a crowd”
advance
熟词僻义，表示“勾引；挑逗；追求”，英文解释为“an attempt to start a sexual or romantic relationship with someone”举个🌰：
She rejected his unwelcome advances.
她拒绝了他的勾引，让他碰了一鼻子灰。
Several former SpaceX interns made similar allegations about a lax attitude toward sexual harassment by supervisors and peers, The New York Times reported. The company has said it is investigating the allegations.
据《纽约时报》报道，SpaceX的几名前实习生也提出了类似指控，称主管和同事对性骚扰睁一眼闭一眼。该公司表示正在调查这些指控。
lax
lax /læks/ 表示“不严格的；不严厉的；松散的，马虎的”，英文解释为“not severe or strong enough”举个🌰：
He took a gun through baggage control to highlight the lax security.
他携带一把枪通过了行李检查，以此引起大家对安全管理松懈这一问题的重视。
A California regulator, meanwhile, recently sued the company over reports of racial discrimination against hundreds of employees, including a lack of promotion opportunities and the use of racial slurs by supervisors. According to a civil suit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing in California Superior Court in Alameda County, Mr. Musk told workers to be “thick skinned” about suffering racist harassment while on the job. Tesla has denied the allegations.
与此同时，加州的一家监管机构最近起诉该公司，因为有报告称数百名员工受到种族歧视，包括缺乏晋升机会以及主管使用种族歧视言语。根据加州公平就业和住房部在阿拉米达县加州高等法院提交的民事诉讼，马斯克告诉员工们，在工作期间遭受种族主义骚扰时要“脸皮厚”。特斯拉否认了这些指控。
slur
slur /slɜː/ 1）表示“诽谤；诋毁；污辱”，英文解释为“an unfair remark about sb/sth that may damage other people's opinion of them”举个🌰：
Her letter contained several outrageous slurs against/on her former colleagues.
她信里有好几处肆意诋毁以前同事的内容。
2）表示“含糊的发音，不清楚的发音”，英文解释为“a way of pronouncing the sounds of a word that is unclear, uncontrolled, or wrong”举个🌰：
The drug affected her vision and made her speak with a slur.
药物影响了她的视力，使她的口齿也不清楚了。
thick-skinned
表示“厚脸皮的；感觉迟钝的”，英文解释为“Someone who is thick-skinned does not appear to be easily hurt by criticism.”举个🌰：
You do need to be thick-skinned to survive as a politician here.
在这里，政客要想干下去就必须脸皮厚点儿。
No wonder many Twitter employees are aghast at the prospect of Mr. Musk leading the company.
难怪许多Twitter员工对马斯克领导该公司的前景感到惊恐万分。
aghast
aghast /əˈɡɑːst, əˈgæst/ 表示“吓呆的，惊骇的”，英文解释为“suddenly filled with strong feelings of shock and worry”举个🌰：
He looked at her aghast.
他惊恐地看着她。
Certainly, Twitter could benefit from some improvements to its service. Its rules are enforced unevenly; it is filled with racist trolling, harassment and misinformation. Politicians and celebrities also seem to enjoy a lighter touch from Twitter’s enforcement of its policies against misinformation, despite the evidence that they are more likely to be believed than regular users. Twitter’s usual approach to moderating content has been to slap warning labels on tweets, which are easy to ignore and don’t mitigate the damage done by misinformation.
当然，Twitter可以从其服务的某些改进中获益。它的规则执行并不均等；它充满了种族主义挑衅、骚扰和不实信息。在不实信息政策的执行上，Twitter对政界人士和名人似乎比较宽松，尽管有证据表明，他们会比普通用户显得更可信。Twitter内容监管的方法通常是在推文上贴上警告标签，这很容易被忽视，也不能减轻不实信息造成的损害。
troll
作为名词，原意指“（斯堪的纳维亚地区传说中的）山精，巨人，侏儒”（an imaginary, either very large or very small creature in traditional Scandinavian stories, that has magical powers and lives in mountains or caves）；
📍另一个常见意思是，指在因特网上为吸引别人关注或捣乱故意留下令人生气的帖子，可以理解为“喷子，键盘侠”，英文解释为“someone who leaves an intentionally annoying message on the internet, in order to get attention or cause trouble”。
mitigate
表示“减轻，缓解，缓和”，英文解释为“to make a situation or the effects of something less unpleasant, harmful, or serious”举个🌰：
Measures need to be taken to mitigate the environmental effects of burning more coal. 需要采取措施来减轻燃煤增加对环境造成的影响。
Before and after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Donald Trump used Twitter to whip his followers into a frenzy. The company rightfully barred Mr. Trump from Twitter for his role in that shameful episode, but it had turned a blind eye to similar behavior for years.
1月6日国会大厦遇袭前后，唐纳德·特朗普利用Twitter让自己的追随者陷入疯狂。由于特朗普在那次可耻事件中扮演的角色，该公司正当地禁止他在Twitter上露面，但多年来，该公司对类似行为一直视而不见。
whip sb into sth
表示“使（某人）快速进入（某种状态）”，英文解释为“If you whip someone into a particular state, you quickly and effectively cause them to be in that state.”举个🌰：
The final speech had the desired effect, whipping the listeners into a patriotic fervour.
最后的演讲取得了预期的效果，在听众中激起了一股爱国热潮。
bar
表示“禁止，阻止”，英文解释为“If someone is barred from a place or from doing something, they are officially forbidden to go there or to do it.”举个🌰：
The players are barred from drinking alcohol the night before a match.
运动员在参赛前夜不得喝酒。
🎬电影《逆转王牌》（Runner Runner）中的台词提到：He said I'd be barred from re-entering the country.他说我下次回国时会被禁止入境。
Into that toxic stew comes Mr. Musk. He has called someone he disagrees with “pedo guy,” made jokes about women’s anatomy and was forced to delete a union-busting message aimed at his factory workers — all on the platform he’ll soon own.
马斯克也加入了这个有毒的大杂烩。他曾把与他意见相左的人称为“恋童癖”，拿女人的身体构造开玩笑，还被迫删除了一条针对其工厂工人的工会解散信息——所有这些都是在他即将拥有的这个平台上。
anatomy
anatomy /əˈnæt.ə.mi/ 1）表示“解剖学”，英文解释为“the scientific study of the structure of human or animal bodies”。
2）表示“（人体的）解剖构造”，英文解释为“the structure of a body, or of a part of a body”。
3）表示“剖析；解析”，英文解释为“an examination of what sth is like or why it happens”，如：an anatomy of the current recession 对当前衰退的剖析。
4）表示“身体”，英文解释为“a person's body”举个🌰：
On which part of her anatomy is she tattooed?
她的纹身刺在什么部位？
Loosening content moderation, as Mr. Musk appears poised to do, won’t make Twitter a better place; that will make it far more toxic. Under the notion that more speech is the best antidote to harmful speech, earnest users can probably expect to be shouted down even more frequently by trolls and bots. (I am hopeful Mr. Musk was serious when he said he’ll “defeat the spam bots or die trying!”)
马斯克似乎准备放松对内容的节制，但这不会让Twitter变得更好；这将会令它的毒性更大。在“更多言论是有害言论的最佳解药”观念之下，认真用户的声音可能会更频繁地被喷子和机器人水军盖住。（马斯克说他会“打败灌水机器人，跟它们拼了！”我希望他是认真的。）
poised
表示“平衡的；作好准备的，摆好姿势的”，英文解释为“If an object or a part of your body is poised, it is completely still but ready to move at any moment.”举个🌰：
The cup was poised on the edge of the chair.
杯子放在椅子边上（随时可能掉下来）。
My pencil was poised over the page, ready to take down her words.
我的铅笔对准了本子，随时准备记下她的话。
antidote
1）表示“解毒剂；（尤指）解毒药”，英文解释为“a chemical, especially a drug, that limits the effects of a poison”；
2）表示“矫正方法；缓解办法；对抗手段”，英文解释为“a way of preventing or acting against something bad”举个🌰：
Regular exercise is the best antidote to tiredness and depression.
经常锻炼是消除疲劳和抑郁的最好方法。
Female Twitter users, in particular, ought to worry about whether Mr. Musk will bring his apparent disdain for women to the company he is about to own. Twitter is already a toxic place for women who use it, particularly those of color.
女性Twitter用户尤其应该担心的是，马斯克是否会把他对女性明显的蔑视带到他即将拥有的公司。对于使用Twitter的女性、尤其是有色人种来说，Twitter已经是一个有害的地方。
disdain
disdain作名词，表示“轻视，蔑视，鄙视”，英文解释为“the feeling of not liking someone or something and thinking that they do not deserve your interest or respect”举个🌰：
He regards the process with disdain.
他对这一过程持鄙视的态度。
📍《经济学人》（The Economist）一篇讲述巴菲特入股日本贸易公司的文章中提到：In recent years they have, even in the trading houses, which once viewed corporate governance with disdain. 近年来管理层确实发生了一些转变，即使是在曾经对公司治理不屑一顾的贸易公司。
And the whole world should be concerned that Mr. Musk might reinstate Mr. Trump, who has so adroitly used social media platforms to spread dangerous Covid misinformation, mock his enemies and cast doubt on the integrity of free and fair elections. Mr. Trump said Monday he would not return to Twitter if allowed back on, in favor of his Truth Social network, but, of course, the former president has reneged on many promises.
全世界都应该担心，马斯克可能会让特朗普回来。特朗普熟练地利用社交媒体平台传播危险的新冠不实信息，嘲笑他的敌人，并对自由和公平选举的公正性发出质疑。特朗普周一表示，即使被允许重新使用，他也不会重返Twitter，他会支持他的Truth Social网络。但是，当然，这位前总统曾经违背过很多承诺。
reinstate
表示“使重返岗位，使恢复原职；把…放回原处；使恢复原状”，英文解释为“to give someone back their previous job or position, or to cause something to exist again”举个🌰：
A month after being unfairly dismissed, he was reinstated in his job.
在被不公正解职1个月后，他又重新返回工作岗位。
mock
表示“嘲笑；（为了取笑）模仿”，英文解释为“If someone mocks you, they show or pretend that they think you are foolish or inferior, for example by saying something funny about you, or by imitating your behaviour.”举个🌰：
I thought you were mocking me.
我以为你在嘲笑我。
🎬电影《消失的爱人》（Gone Girl）中的台词提到：If you need to mock somebody, mock me. 如果你们要嘲弄什么人，嘲弄我。
cast doubt on
表示“对…怀有疑虑，对…表示怀疑”，英文解释为“to make something seem uncertain”举个🌰：
Witnesses have cast doubt on the accused's innocence.
证人们对嫌疑人是否清白表示怀疑。
renege
renege /rɪˈneɪɡ/ 表示“违背（诺言）；违约；背信”，英文解释为“to fail to keep a promise or an agreement, etc.”举个🌰：
If you renege on the deal now, I'll fight you in the courts.
如果你现在撕毁协议，我会让你上法庭。
Mr. Musk is correct that Twitter has become a de facto public square. But consider the fate of another public square led by a billionaire with no real check on his power: Facebook. Leaks over the past year have shown that Meta, under Mark Zuckerberg’s leadership, has overlooked evidence that hurtful comments on the company’s platforms caused emotional harm to teenagers and increased users’ anxiety and anger. The company knows its algorithms are deeply flawed, but because Mr. Zuckerberg holds a controlling share of votes on the board, external and internal pressure on the company to change how they are designed and deployed has proved futile.
马斯克说的没错，Twitter已经成为一个事实上的公共广场。但是想想看，另一个由权力没有受到真正制约的亿万富翁领导的公共广场Facebook有什么样的命运。过去一年的泄露信息表明，在马克·扎克伯格领导下，Meta忽视了一些表明该公司平台上的伤人言论对青少年造成情感伤害、增加用户焦虑和愤怒的证据。该公司知道自己的算法存在严重缺陷，但由于扎克伯格在董事会中拥有控股权，外界和内部要求该公司改变算法设计和部署方式的压力被证明是徒劳的。
de facto
de facto /ˌdeɪ ˈfæktoʊ/ 表示“事实上的，实际上的”，英文解释为“existing in fact, although perhaps not intended, legal, or accepted”举个🌰：
The city is rapidly becoming the de facto centre of the financial world.
这座城市正在迅速成为事实上的金融中心。
futile
表示“（行动）无作用的；无效的；不成功的”，英文解释为“(of actions) having no effect or achieving nothing”举个🌰：
Attempts to get supplies to the region are futile.
往该地区运送物资的努力失败了。
Perhaps Jack Dorsey, one of Twitter’s co-founders and a board member, should have trusted his instincts when he tweeted that he doesn’t “believe any individual or institutions should own social media, or more generally media companies.”
Twitter联合创始人之一、董事会成员杰克·多尔西在Twitter上写道，他“认为任何个人或机构都不应该拥有社交媒体，或者更广泛地说，媒体公司”，他或许应该相信自己的直觉。
Mr. Musk has said that he doesn’t care about the economics of his deal for Twitter. He may need that attitude if, as some expect, the platform becomes a free-for-all and advertisers abandon it.
马斯克曾表示，他不在乎这笔收购交易的经济效益。他可能需要这样的态度——如果像一些人预期的那样，这个平台成为一个自由开放的平台，而广告商将放弃它。
Where can people go if they don’t like what Twitter turns into under Mr. Musk? New social media networks promising a free-speech alternative to Twitter have so far failed to gain traction, notably Truth Social among them.
如果人们不喜欢Twitter在马斯克的领导下变成的样子，他们可以去哪里？一些新的社交媒体网络承诺提供可以替代Twitter的言论自由，但到目前为止它们并没有获得关注，尤其是Truth Social。
As with the motives for establishing those competitors, Mr. Musk’s reasons for taking control of Twitter aren’t about free speech; it’s about controlling a megaphone. With his legion of fans, Mr. Musk will command a gigantic megaphone and be free to plug his own investments, pooh-pooh sound health regulations and shout down critics.
与建立这些竞争对手的动机一样，马斯克控制Twitter的原因不是为了言论自由；而是为了控制一个传声筒。有了庞大的粉丝群，马斯克将拥有一个巨大的传声筒，可以自由地宣传自己的投资，对健全的医疗法规嗤之以鼻，并对批评者大加挞伐。
megaphone
表示“喇叭，话筒，扩音器”，英文解释为“a cone-shaped device that makes your voice louder when you speak into it, so that people can hear you although they are not near to you”
Speaking freely: Does that sound like a better place?
畅所欲言：这听起来像是一个更好的地方吗？
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LearnAndRecord
2015年2月8日
2022年4月26日
第2635天
每天持续行动学外语