It’s no secret that Facebook is vastly disliked. In fact, if there’s one thing that Americans can generally agree on, it’s that Facebook cannot be trusted.

脸谱网被广泛讨厌已经不是什么秘密了。 实际上，如果美国人普遍同意一件事，那就是Facebook不能被信任。

Republicans believe that Facebook is controlled by social-justice warriors, populated by Bernie-lovers, and funded through the Clinton Foundation. Democrats argue that Facebook influenced the 2016 election, allowing Russian dissidents to sway votes to Donald Trump. Although they rarely agree on anything, both political parties agree that Facebook is a nefarious, untrustworthy source of information.

共和党人认为，Facebook是由社会正义战士控制的，由伯尼爱好者组成，并由克林顿基金会资助。 民主党人辩称，Facebook影响了2016年大选，允许俄罗斯持不同政见者将选票投向唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)。 尽管他们很少就任何事情达成共识，但两个政党都同意Facebook是一种邪恶的，不可信任的信息来源。

Perhaps I’m exaggerating the negativity surrounding the company. But, as a recent survey by The Verge suggests, I may not be exaggerating anything at all.

也许我是在夸大公司周围的负面情绪。 但是，正如The Verge最近进行的一项调查所表明的那样，我可能一点都不夸张。

Take a look:

看一看：

Out of all the companies listed, only 41% of consumers trust Facebook with their information. Is this just an anomaly, or does it reflect a greater trend? Let’s keep looking at the data.

在所有列出的公司中，只有41％的消费者信任Facebook的信息。 这仅仅是异常，还是反映了更大的趋势？ 让我们继续查看数据。

The poll is split for the third and fourth statement, but take a look at the first line. 72% of the respondents believe that “Facebook has too much power.” And yet, at the same time, 66% of those who responded believe that “It’s okay that Instagram and WhatsApp are owned by Facebook.”

针对第三和第四条语句对民意调查进行了拆分，但请看一下第一行。 72％的受访者认为“ Facebook力量太大”。 然而，与此同时，有66％的受访者认为“ Instagram和WhatsApp归Facebook所有是可以的。”

What does this mean? Americans believe that the company has too much power, but the power doesn’t necessarily stem from the size of Facebook. It’s okay that Facebook owns both Instagram and WhatsApp, so that’s not an issue of power in the eyes of most consumers.

这是什么意思？ 美国人认为该公司拥有太多权力，但权力不一定来自Facebook的规模。 Facebook拥有Instagram和WhatsApp都是可以的，因此在大多数消费者看来这不是权力问题。

Instead, Americans believe that Facebook has too much power because the company holds too much information. The Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018 created a deep divide of mistrust between consumers and Facebook, and the tech company has yet to regain Americans’ trust.

相反，美国人认为Facebook拥有太多权力，因为该公司拥有太多信息。 2018年的剑桥分析(Cambridge Analytica)丑闻在消费者和Facebook之间造成了严重的不信任感鸿沟，这家科技公司尚未重新获得美国人的信任。

Let’s take a look at one last chart:

让我们看一下最后一个图表：

46% of respondents state that their top reason for not using Facebook is “Privacy/Trust with my personal information.” For many Americans, this is becoming an increasingly significant problem that Facebook must address. The company has a track record of betraying consumer trust, and such methods of betrayal cannot be sustainable in the long run.

46％的受访者表示，不使用Facebook的主要原因是“对我的个人信息的隐私/信任”。 对于许多美国人来说，这已成为Facebook必须解决的日益重要的问题。 该公司拥有背叛消费者信任的记录，从长远来看，这种背叛方法是无法持续的。

Why do we continue to dislike Facebook? We’ve already seen a few of the reasons: involvement in political scandals, collecting and harbouring data, and a lack of privacy surrounding consumer information.

为什么我们继续不喜欢Facebook？ 我们已经看到了一些原因：参与政治丑闻，收集和保存数据以及缺乏围绕消费者信息的隐私。

But there’s one apparent reason that we haven’t yet examined. Here is why many Americans dislike — and will continue to dislike — Facebook:

但是，有一个明显的原因我们尚未检查。 这就是为什么许多美国人不喜欢并且将继续不喜欢Facebook的原因：

不计任何代价的增长 (Growth at Any Cost)

Facebook has shown a tremendous ability to manoeuvre through the social-media industry, and the company has seen significant growth since its creation in 2004. Facebook’s mission has been to grow, and grow, and grow, and their method of doing this is through connecting users.

Facebook在社交媒体行业表现出了极大的操纵能力，自2004年成立以来，公司实现了长足发展。Facebook的使命是成长，成长，成长，他们的方法是通过联系用户。

But at what cost?

但是要花多少钱呢？

In March of 2018, BuzzFeed News obtained a memo from Andrew Bosworth, one of Facebook’s vice presidents.

2018年3月， BuzzFeed新闻从Facebook副总裁之一安德鲁·博斯沃思(Andrew Bosworth)获得了一份备忘录。

As Bosworth stated in the memo, “We connect people. Period. That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in.”

正如博斯沃思(Bosworth )在备忘录中所说： “我们将人们联系在一起。 期。 这就是为什么我们在增长方面所做的所有工作都是合理的。 所有有问题的联系人导入做法。 所有可以帮助人们保持被朋友搜索的微妙语言。 我们所做的所有工作都会带来更多的交流。”

That’s why all the work is justified? To continue connecting more people? Is that really the mindset that a company should have? Does that mindset actually benefit consumers?

这就是为什么所有工作都合理的原因？ 要继续联系更多人吗？ 这真的是一家公司应该拥有的心态吗？ 这种心态实际上会使消费者受益吗？

Bosworth’s next words are even more telling. The executive continues: “We [at Facebook] connect people…Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools. And still, we connect people. The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is de facto good.”

Bosworth接下来的话更能说明问题。 这位高管继续说道 ：“我们(在Facebook上)将人们联系起来……也许通过将某人暴露给欺凌者而牺牲生命。 也许有人死于我们工具协调的恐怖袭击中。 仍然，我们联系人们。 丑陋的事实是，我们相信与人之间的联系如此深入，以至于任何能让我们更频繁地与更多人联系的事情实际上都是好事。”

“We believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is de facto good.” — Andrew Bosworth, Facebook Executive

“我们相信与人之间的联系如此之深，以至于任何能让我们更频繁地与更多人联系的事物实际上都是好的。” — Facebook执行官Andrew Bosworth

Bosworth’s memo, which was titled “The Ugly” in its circulation to Facebook colleagues, received withering criticism when exposed in 2018 by the media. To his credit, however, Bosworth’s memo pointed out the glaringly-obvious problems within Facebook’s corporate culture.

博斯沃思的备忘录在向Facebook同事散发时被称为“丑陋”，在2018年被媒体曝光时受到了强烈的批评。 值得称赞的是，博斯沃思的备忘录指出了Facebook企业文化中显而易见的问题。

Read the last line again. Because Facebook’s sole mission is to connect people, anything that allows the company to connect users is deemed — in the company’s eyes — as “de facto good.” This is what many Americans find so blatantly wrong.

再次阅读最后一行。 因为Facebook的唯一使命是联系人们，所以在公司看来，任何允许公司与用户联系的东西都被视为“事实上的好”。 这是许多美国人如此公然的错误。

As a 2018 article from Quartz states, “Underlying all of Facebook’s screw-ups is a bumbling obliviousness to real humans. The company’s singular focus on ‘connecting people’ has allowed it to conquer the world, making possible the creation of a vast network of human relationships, a source of insights and eyeballs that makes advertisers and investors drool.”

正如Quartz在2018年发表的一篇文章所言，“ Facebook的所有弊端都是对真实人类的无聊的遗忘。 该公司对“与人联系”的独特关注使其能够征服世界，从而有可能建立起庞大的人际关系网络，这是使广告商和投资者流口水的见解和眼球。

Consumers aren’t dumb. They sense the company’s obliviousness to real humans, the lack of moral guidance within Facebook’s corporate structure. And if it hasn’t deterred users yet, it will in the future.

消费者并不傻。 他们感觉到该公司对真实人类的遗忘，Facebook公司结构内缺乏道德指导。 而且，如果它还没有阻止用户，那么将来还会。

我们能学到什么？ (What Can We Learn?)

There is a difference between data and humans. Data doesn’t have feelings, nor does it have the privacy that can be betrayed. But humans have both feelings and a sense of privacy.

数据和人类之间是有区别的。 数据没有感情，也没有可以背叛的隐私。 但是人类既有感觉又有隐私感。

It seems obvious, doesn’t it? But Facebook has chosen to either ignore the obvious or avoid it altogether.

看起来很明显，不是吗？ 但是，Facebook选择要么忽略显而易见的事物，要么完全避免它。

As Quartz writes, “the imperative to ‘connect people’ lacks the one ingredient essential for being a good citizen: Treating individual human beings as sacrosanct. To Facebook, the world is not made up of individuals, but of connections between them. The billions of Facebook accounts belong not to ‘people’ but to ‘users,’ collections of data points connected to other collections of data points on a vast Social Network, to be targeted and monetized by computer programs.”

就像Quartz 所写的那样 ，“联系人们”的必要性缺乏成为好公民所必需的一种要素：将个人视为神圣不可侵犯。 对于Facebook而言，世界不是由个人组成的，而是由人与人之间的联系组成的。 数十亿个Facebook帐户不属于“人”，而是属于“用户”，这些数据点的集合与庞大的社交网络上的其他数据点集合相关联，并可以通过计算机程序作为目标并从中获利。”

Other companies should be wary of Facebook’s mistake. Consumers must come first in any decision, and consumer privacy is paramount. If you choose to treat your consumers as anything less than human, your company will pay the price.

其他公司应该警惕Facebook的错误。 消费者在任何决定中都必须先行，而消费者的隐私至关重要。 如果您选择将消费者视为非人类，您的公司将为此付出代价。

Facebook, despite all the negative sentiment surrounding the company, does have the potential to change. But any change must come from the top. In a company with a long history of ignoring consumer sentiment, the only way to change is through a complete revitalization of the corporate attitude surrounding data and consumer privacy.

尽管公司周围存在种种消极情绪，但Facebook确实有可能改变。 但是任何改变都必须来自高层。 在一家长期忽略消费者情感的公司中，改变的唯一方法是彻底恢复围绕数据和消费者隐私的企业态度。

Yes, connections can be made. Yes, data can be analyzed. But never at the price of a loss of privacy. Never at the cost of treating humans as anything less.

是的，可以建立连接。 是的，可以分析数据。 但是绝不以失去隐私为代价。 永远不要以牺牲人类为代价。

© Aaron Schnoor 2020

© 亚伦·施诺尔(Aaron Schnoor) 2020