观天下| 小扎对决国会

▍课程导读

在 Facebook 用户数据泄露事件后，CEO 马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）于4月11日在华盛顿国会山参加了美国国会的听证会。会上扎克伯格表示，Facebook 公司目前所面临的问题，都是他的错误造成的，他也会负责到底。在出席参议院听证会后，扎克伯格又参加了众议院听证会，在质询中再次对 Facebook 数据泄露事件表示道歉，并回答了 Facebook 关于数据隐私、网络监管、对大选的影响、垄断等问题。从这次 Facebook 用户数据泄露事件我们也可以觉察到，如今坐拥海量数据却缺乏透明管理的公司非常之多，那该如何从法律层面对当下高科技巨头进行有效的监管和约束？这可能会成为当下值得人们去研究的一个非常重要的课题。

本篇课程首发于2018年4月18日

难度系数：★★★☆☆
无用系数：★★★★☆

▍英文原文

Face-off

① On April 11th Mark Zuckerberg testified before testy politicians in Washington about the firm's latest privacy controversy, first to a joint hearing of two Senate committees that lasted around four hours, and then again on April 12th to a House of Representatives committee.

• face-off: n. 对决；竞争
• testify /ˈtɛstɪfʌɪ/: vi.（出庭）作证 vt. 证实
• A testify to B: A 作为证据证实了 B
• testy /ˈtɛsti/: adj. 怒气冲冲的；暴躁易怒的
• hearing /ˈhɪərɪŋ/: n. 听证会
• senate /ˈsɛnɪt/: n. 参议院
• House of Representatives: 众议院

② While in the long term some sort of regulation is inevitable, it seems less likely in the near term.
③ Laws take years and sometimes decades to come into effect for burgeoning industries.

• burgeoning /ˈbəːdʒ(ə)nɪŋ/: adj. 飞速发展的
• burgeon /ˈbəːdʒ(ə)n/: vi. 飞速发展

④ For Facebook to change in any meaningful way, Congress will have to change too.
⑤ One of the most stunning revelations of the highly choreographed hearings was not anything Mr Zuckerberg said, but how little America's politicians seemed to know about Facebook and the way the world of digital communications operates.

• stunning /ˈstʌnɪŋ/: adj. 令人震惊的
• revelation /rɛvəˈleɪʃ(ə)n/: n. 被揭露的真相、内情
  reveal /rɪˈviːl/: vt. 泄露；披露
  revealing /rɪˈviːlɪŋ/: adj. 发人深思的
• choreograph /ˈkɒrɪəɡrɑːf/: vt. 策划；安排

⑥ There is little hope for smart regulation that will protect users' privacy until the people who would draft laws understand the ecosystem they need to tame.

• draft /drɑːft/: vt. 起草
• ecosystem /ˈiːkəʊsɪstəm/: n. 生态系统
• tame /teɪm/: vt. 驯化；监管控制 adj. 温顺的；驯服的

⑦ The Cambridge Analytica scandal gave Mr Zuckerberg a crash course in political diplomacy, but the education of politicians about the opaque, labyrinthine world of digital data is only just beginning.

• crash course: 强化速成课
• diplomacy /dɪˈpləʊməsi/: n. 处理人际关系的手腕、手段；外交
• opaque /ə(ʊ)ˈpeɪk/: adj. 不透明的；混沌的
• labyrinthine /ˌlæbəˈrɪnθaɪn/: adj. 错综复杂的

▍补充例句

• testify
  He testified that five people were harassed by the boss.
  The empty shops in the street testify to the depth of the recession.