Facebook参与到66个国家的政治选举

瑞士媒体：Republik.ch在5月16日发表了一长篇报道：Facebook Influenced Elections in 66 Countries【链接点击“阅读原文”】

作者显然非常担忧2019年即将到来的瑞士大选，Facebook也会参与其中。特别是Facebook已经在66个国家中使用的“I AM A VOTER”的特性。因此，这篇文章并不是讲俄罗斯人恶意利用社交媒体平台影响大选，而是关注Facebook本身的作用。

什么是“I AM A VOTER”

第一次在美国部署这个功能时，投票的注册人数显著上升

很多人觉得这不是件好事嘛？民主国家投票人数低迷一直是主要困难。这篇报道的作者不满的是，Facebook是在真实的环境中拿选民做实验——“Treating Voters Like Lab Rats”。以下是对如何实验，以及实验效果如何的描述：

For good reason, too, given that the company has treated voters like laboratory rats in the past. Facebook split the electorate into three groups. Some received the election reminder together with their entire network of Facebook friends. Others didn't get anything at all. And for the third group, the feature popped up, but without any information about the behavior of their friends.

Facebook conducted ceaseless A/B tests as the election campaign proceeded. 【将用户分为三组，接收不同的信息】

That happened back in 2010 during U.S. congressional elections, when the company conducted simple social psychology tests. For example: What do you do when you find out that your Facebook friends are politically active? Or when a social network calls on you to get out and vote just like your friends have done. Of course, you also want to be a part of taking your civic duties seriously and acting as a role model. 【早在2010年就开始为实验做准备】

One of the key findings of a study on the congressional elections published in 2012 by the scientific publication Nature was that peer pressure is decisive in our decisions. It concluded that it was not necessarily the reminder that was key, but rather the feeling that one's Facebook friends would also be voting. The report confirmed the network effect. 【用户的朋友是否投票了，对用户的行为有最大的作用】

Some 61 million American users unwittingly took part in the 2010 experiment. Of those, 340,000 only voted «because» of the experiment, claims Robert M. Bond, a political scientist formerly  with the University of California who led the experiment together with Facebook. He then repeated the experiment during the presidential elections in November 2012.【与Facebook共同开展实验的学者承认，6100万美国用户在不知情的情况下加入了这次实验，其中有34万用户去投票，完全是因为这次实验。】

When news of the second experiment broke in 2014, Bond even admitted it was possible that the mobilization effort might have provided a minor boost to Barack Obama that year because Facebook at the time was used more by women and younger voters, both of which groups counted among Obama's core supporters.【这位教授在2014年承认，实验可能帮助了奥巴马当选，因为当时Facebook用户更多的是女性和年轻人，因此这34万额外的投票数，更可能投给了奥巴马】

在回答Republik.ch的问询时，Facebook给出了其在全球部署“I AM A VOTER”功能的情况：

以上就是报道的核心要点。更多的信息请点击左下角的原文链接。其实很简单，当一个平台能够比国家更容易地动员国家中的每个人时，透明度变成了核心。这个透明度包括运营、算法、画像等等方面。现在Twitter为了应对GDPR做了个很好的尝试。【Twitter增强“定向推送”透明度的尝试】