I fell for Facebook fake news. Here's why millions of you did, too.

fall for sth. 对某物信以为真；被某物欺骗

我被脸书的假新闻欺骗，这里是成千上万的人也和我一样被它欺骗的原因

The Facebook video is nuts, but I can't tear my eyes away. A plane, struggling in a huge storm, does a 360-degree flip before safely landing and letting out terrified passengers.

nuts adj.愚蠢的;怪异的;发疯的
tear ... away 使依依不舍地离开；把（某人）拽走
flip n.翻动;翻转

脸书上的视频十分愚蠢，但我却看得目不转睛。在视频里，一架在狂风暴雨里挣扎的飞机，在空中翻转了 360 度后安全降落，让惊恐万分的乘客们走出机舱。

It turns out the video is totally bunk, spliced together from a computer-generated clip and unrelated real news footage. But that didn't stop the Facebook post from arriving in my News Feed via a friend last month. I watched it. Maybe you did, too: It has nearly 14 million views.

bunk n.胡说；瞎说
splice v.拼接;拼凑

原来这个视频纯粹是在胡编瞎造，只不过是把一个计算机生成的视频和一些不相关的真实新闻镜头剪接在一起。然而这个操作并没有阻止该脸书视频上个月通过我的朋友传到我的信息流中。我看了这个视频。可能你也看了：这个视频的浏览量差不多到了 1400 万。

If you think you're immune to this stuff, you're wrong. Detecting what's fake in images and video is only getting harder. Misinformation is part of an online economy that weaponizes social media to profit from our clicks and attention. And with the right tools to stop it still a long ways off, we all need to get smarter about it.

immune adj.免疫的；不受影响的
profit from 从...获利
a long ways off 遥不可及

如果你觉得自己不受这种假视频的影响，你就大错特错了。发现图像和视频中的假象只会变得越来越难。网络经济将社交媒体变作武器，从我们的点击和关注中获益，而虚假信息是网络经济的一部分。因为阻止虚假信息的有效工具依旧遥不可及，我们都需要对此变得更加敏锐。

Fake news producers also use our friends to add to their credibility. When I saw the plane video, my suspicions weren't on high alert because it came from my friend, who I trust as a smart guy. He told me he realized later the video was a fake, but thought comments on his post would alert his friends. "It's just funny thinking about the steps by which we get duped," he said.

on alert 处于戒备状态
suspicion n.怀疑，疑心
dupe v.愚弄；欺骗

假新闻的生产者还会利用我们的朋友来增加他们的可信度。当我看到那个飞机视频时，我并没有那么怀疑，因为这个视频来自一个我坚信很聪明的朋友。他告诉我他后来意识到视频是假的，但是觉得针对他帖子的评论能够警示他的朋友们。“想一想我们被欺骗的步骤真的很有趣，”他表示。

Maybe we'll eventually learn to be less trusting of our friends—at least the online ones. The people we count on for important information in the real world aren't always the people who fill our social media feeds.

eventually 最终地
count on 指望；依靠

或许我们最终将学会降低对朋友的信任——至少降低对线上朋友的信任。在现实生活中为我们提供重要可靠信息的人，和在社交媒体上填满我们信息流的人，并不总是同一拨人。

Or if you want to avoid being that friend: Before you spread the latest outrage online, stop and consider the source.

或者，如果你想避免成为那样的朋友：在你传播线上最新的爆款新闻之前，停下来并想一想这个消息的来源。

文章来源/华盛顿邮报/流利英语