听力原文:
Technology and politics
科技与政治
Bits and ballots
比特与选举
Social media have made the world more democratic—for now
现在看，社会化媒体给世界带来了更多的民主
THE world’s first tweet was as dull as they come. “Just setting up my twttr,” wrote Jack Dorsey, now Twitter’s chief executive, on March 21st 2006. Ten years after that inauspicious start, Twitter’s 320m monthly users send hundreds of millions of tweets a day. However cloudy the firm’s current prospects, and however trivial many of those tweets may be, Twitter is part of a wider communications revolution. As this week’s special report shows, the internet has distributed more political power to citizens. But new technologies also carry risks.
重点词汇：
1 inauspicious 预示前景黯淡的；不祥的；不吉利的
2 trivial不重要的；琐碎的，微不足道的
听力原文:
Initial scepticism about the political impact of social media has faded. With the advent of the smartphone, messaging apps and video-streaming services, Twitter and other social platforms have become central to all kinds of collective action. They let like-minded people quickly find one another. They make it easy to get the message out and to mobilise the masses. And they allow nascent protest movements to function without leaders or formal organisations, to begin with at least.
重点词汇：
1 scepticism 怀疑态度；怀疑主义
2 fade （使）变淡，变暗
3 advent （重要事件、人物、发明等的）出现，到来
4 mobilise 动员起来，调动，鼓动起;
5 the masses 群众；平民百姓
6 nascent 新生的；萌芽的；未成熟的
听力原文:
All this is to be welcomed. Twitter and other social media have made the world a more democratic place. They give voice and power to people who have neither—and not just in autocratic countries. Social media turbo-charged anti-austerity movements such as the indignados in Spain. More recently, they helped get Black Lives Matter, a movement fighting violence against African-Americans, off the ground.
重点词汇：
1 autocrat 独裁者；专制统治者；专制君主 autocratic 独裁的; 专制的;
2 turbo-charged 装有涡轮增压器的 turbo 涡轮（发动机）
3 austerity 苦行；禁欲； 节衣缩食；艰苦朴素
4 indignados 愤怒者运动
5 off the ground 顺利开始，开始发生
听力原文:
But technology is never purely good or bad—it always cuts both ways. Social media also facilitate more troubling kinds of activism: xenophobic groups in Germany and Islamic State both make extensive use of such platforms, for example. And even as social-media services democratise political movements, the data they carry can also concentrate power in pernicious ways.
重点词汇：
1 activist 积极分子；活跃分子 activism 行动主义; 激进主义;
2 xenophobia 仇外，惧外（对外国人的厌恶或惧怕） xenophobic adj. 恐惧（或憎恨）外国人的，恐外的;
3 pernicious 有害的，恶性的（尤指潜移默化地） facilitate 促进；促使；使便利
听力原文:
Online campaigns leave a big digital footprint that can be analysed, often in real time. Again, Twitter is a good example: those with access to its millions of tweets can map networks of activists, analyse what they are talking about and identify the most influential. This flood of digital information is a bonanza for intelligence agencies and, especially, for autocratic regimes. Both can use social media as a tool for surveillance. True, citizens can use encryption to protect themselves from the eye of the state. But greater secrecy also makes media less social, and political campaigns harder to organise.
重点词汇：
1 bonanza 发财（或成功）的机遇
2 encrypt 把…加密（或编码）
3 intelligence agencies 情报机构

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