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Okay Joss, I want to start with an experiment where we swap TikTok login information to see just how different our feeds actually are.
是这样的，Joss，我想做个试验，咱俩交换登录抖音（海外版），看看我们的推送会有多不一样。
I don't know what it's going to reveal about me.
不知道会暴露我的哪一面哎。
I do wonder how different it's going to be.
但我真的很想知道会有多不一样。
Nurse turns into a hot lady.
我收到的推送是护士变身性感女郎的视频。
OK so I just got literally the male version of that on yours. Look.
好吧，我刚刚在你手机上也看到了，只不过是男版的。你看。
Oh my god.
天呐。
Male nurse. Female nurse.
男护士。女护士。
Joss there are so many animals on yours.
乔斯，你的抖音里有好多小动物的视频啊。
List of underrated horror movies.
被低估的恐怖电影名单。
I would never get that.
我永远都不会收到这样的推送。
I've never seen this pushup challenge.
这个俯卧撑挑战我还没看过哎。
Yeah, I think TikTok recognized that I would prefer a funny version of this.
嗯，我觉得抖音应该是知道我更喜欢搞笑版。
It recognized that I share a sense of humor with this person in Indonesia.
它肯定是知道我和印尼的这个哥们儿有一样的幽默感了。
TikTok's frictionless personalization is what made the app an instant success around the world.
抖音这种零摩擦的个性化定制特色正是这款应用能够立即在全世界范围内大获成功的原因。
But now that global success is crashing into international politics,
然而，如今，这一成功和国际政治撞了个正着，
putting TikTok in the middle of a worldwide battle over how open the internet should be.
抖音也因此被推到了一场有关互联网应该开放到何种程度的全球争论的风口浪尖上。
"President Trump threatening to ban TikTok in the United States as Microsoft is hoping to acquire it."
“特朗普总统威胁要禁止抖音在美国运营，微软则希望能将其收购到自己旗下。”
I think Chinese tech companies traditionally have really struggled
我觉得，中国的科技公司一直都很难从文化上扎根美国，
to get a cultural foothold in the U.S. because the culture is just so different.
因为中美文化差异实在是太大了。
That's Eugene Wei, a Tech Product Executive who has written about how Tiktok,
这位是某科技产品的高管尤金·魏，他曾经写过一篇文章，
which is owned by a company called ByteDance,
讲抖音，隶属于一家名为“字节跳动”的公司，
became the first globally-successful Chinese app.
是如何变身为第一款在全世界获得成功的中文应用的。
How they did it all comes down to design.
他们能做到这一切，归根结底还是得益于这款app的设计。
When you first open up TikTok,
用户第一次打开抖音的时候，
you don't have to follow anyone, or tell the app about your interests, or even choose what to watch.
既不用关注任何人，也不用告诉应用你的喜好，甚至都不用选择你要看什么。
It shows you a video, and the only decision you have to make is how long you watch it.
这款软件会自动向你展示一个视频，你唯一要做的决定就是看多久。
So if you look at the history of social media,
回顾一下社交媒体的发展史，
most of the giants in social networking today started by having people essentially build up a social graph from the bottoms up.
你会发现今天的大多数社交网络巨头一开始都是从让用户自己自下而上地搭建出一张社交图。
A social graph is the web of accounts you follow
社交图是由你关注的账号构成的一个网络，
and it determines most of the content you see on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.
这张图就决定了你在Facebook、推特、Instagram以及Snapchat上看到的大部分内容会是什么类型的内容。
The problem with that approach is that it can feel like work:
这种设计的问题在于它会让你觉得这个过程像一份工作：
building up a social network takes time,
（因为）搭建社交网络需要时间，
you're not necessarily going to like every post from the accounts you follow,
你也不一定就会喜欢你关注的账号推送的每一条内容，
and it's hard to find accounts that you would like but don't know about.
而且，要找到你喜欢但可能还不知道的账户并不容易。
TikTok took a different approach.
于是，抖音换了一个思路。
It bypasses the social graph, and instead builds an "interest graph," by watching you interact with videos.
它绕开社交图，选择了利用你与视频的互动来抓取一个“兴趣图”。
TikTok isn't the first platform to do that-- it's basically how YouTube works too --
抖音并不是第一个这么做的平台——YouTube基本上也是这样运营的——
but because TikTok videos are less than 60 seconds long, you watch more of them, which means more data.
只不过，因为抖音视频的时长都在60秒以内，用户看的视频数量会更多，也就意味着他们拿到的数据会更多。
People talk about the TikTok algorithm as if it's some magic piece of software
大家说到抖音的算法的时候，都透着一股抖音似乎是一款特别神奇的软件的语气，
that is just miraculously better than every piece of software out there.
就好像它奇迹般地就是要比市面上的每一款软件都要好一样。
But the truth is that it's not necessarily that the algorithms themselves have gotten that much better.
然而，事实是，并不一定是他们的算法本身就有那么好。
But if you massively, massively increase the training data set that you train the algorithm on,
事实上，假如你无限扩展训练算法所用的数据集，
you can achieve really amazing results.
你也能得出非常令人惊叹的输出结果。
And that's why I think a lot of people will describe the algorithm as eerily accurate.
这也是我觉得大家之所以会说他们的算法精度出奇地高，
Eerily personalized.
还出奇地个性化的原因。
TikTok's interest graph introduces you to like-minded people.
抖音抓取到兴趣图后，会推荐和你志趣相投的用户给你。
And because the videos are often music or meme-based rather than language-based,
而且，因为他们的视频经常都是以音乐或表情包，而不是以语言为基础的，
you may find that some of those like-minded people live on the other side of the world.
所以，你可能会发现，和你志趣相投的有些用户其实生活在世界的另一端。
They might be a dancer in Nepal, a family in Mexico, or kids in the U.K, or this guy,
他们可能是尼泊尔的一位舞蹈演员，可能是墨西哥的一个家庭，也可能是美国的一群孩子，也可能是这哥们儿，
as long as the algorithm predicts that it'll entertain you.
只要算法预测到那个视频能给你带来快乐，平台就会把它推送给你。
And so in that way, the TikTok algorithm kind of allows ByteDance to gain traction in markets all over the world,
就是通过这种方式，抖音算法捧红了字节跳动在世界各地市场的人气，
with languages that they don't understand, subcultures they don't understand.
借助的还是他们并不懂的语言，并不了解的亚文化。
TikTok's global appeal enabled it to reach a billion users faster than the other social media giants had.
这种遍及全球的人气使得抖音在突破10亿用户这一目标时比其他社交媒体巨头用的时间都短。
But it also set the app on a collision course with a different trend: the rise of internet nationalism.
问题是，这样的人气也让该应用走上了与另一种趋势——网络民族主义的兴起——彼此冲突的道路。
"India is banning TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps."
“印度正在禁止包括抖音在内的几十个中文应用。”
"Australia has cited concerns about national security.
“澳大利亚表达了对国家安全的担忧。
So too has South Korea."
韩国也是如此。”
"President Trump issued executive orders that would ban TikTok and messaging app WeChat from operating in the US in 45 days."
“特朗普总统发布行政令，将于45后封禁抖音和即时通讯应用微信，禁止其在美国继续运营。”
Bytedance is based in China, but TikTok says they have never provided any US user data to the Chinese government.
字节跳动总部位于中国，但抖音表示，他们从未向中国政府提供过任何美国用户的数据。
For his part, President Trump has hinted that this is actually about getting revenge for the coronavirus.
特朗普总统则暗示，封禁之举实际上是为了报复新冠病毒一事。
"Why would you ban it?"
“你为什么要封禁抖音？”
"Well, it's a big business.
“这个嘛，因为这是笔不错的生意啊。
China, look what happened with China with this virus, what they've done to this country and to the entire world is disgraceful."
因为中国，看看这个病毒出来之后中国都做了什么，看他们把（美国）这个国家，把整个世界都害成什么样了，太可耻了。”
But whatever the motivation, the US targeting a globally popular app is a big deal --
但无论动机是什么，美国向一款在全世界都很火的应用发难都是件大事——
because it throws a wrench into one of the biggest debates over what the internet should be.
因为它给互联网应该是什么这一首屈一指的争论又增加了一块拦路石。
A New America Foundation report plots that debate along a spectrum of how open the internet is within a country.
新美国基金会的一份报告围绕一个国家的互联网应该开放到何种程度这一维度将这场辩论画成了一个图。
"So on the one pole, we can visualize the free and open model, so that's the democratic model,
“这个图的一端呢，我们可以想象成是比较自由开放的模式，也就是民主模式，
very little state involvement in Internet content."
这种模式下，国家对互联网内容的干预很少。”
As the original home of the internet and many of the world's biggest tech companies,
作为互联网和众多世界级科技公司的发源地，
the US has traditionally advocated for the free flow of information online.
美国一直是主张网络信息自由流动的。
"The opposite end of the spectrum is what we see in countries like China,
“而这个图的另一端则是中国这样的国家，
where there is heavy state involvement in content, where they do go to Internet companies and say,
他们的政府对网络信息的内容是高度参与的，他们是真的会找互联网公司说，
you have to censor all of these keywords, you have to censor all these foreign websites."
所有这些关键字，所有这些外国网站你们都要审查一遍。”
China's Great Firewall famously blocks sites like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter,
大家都知道，中国的长城防火墙把谷歌、YouTube、Facebook、Twitter
Wikipedia, Netflix, WhatsApp, and many western news outlets.
维基百科、网飞、WhatsApp以及很多西方新闻媒体都给屏蔽了。
But it's not just China anymore.
但这么做的已经不止中国一个国家了。
"What we see in the middle are countries who I think are going to play a pivotal role going forward in this global scale tipping we see.
"中间这些国家，我认为，这些国家将在我们看到的这个全球形势中发挥关键的作用。
According to analysts surveyed for this report,
据这份报告所调查的多位分析师的说法，
many of these countries shifted toward less openness between 2014 and 2018.
在2014~2018年期间，这些国家中的许多国家都变得不那么开放了。
In 2019 Russia moved to build an internet that is isolated from the rest of the world, following years of increasing government censorship.
在经历了一年比一年严格的政府审查之后，俄罗斯也在2019年建立起了一个与世界其他地区隔绝的互联网。
Turkey has been blocking some news websites and recently passed a law giving the government sweeping powers over social media.
土耳其一直都有屏蔽部分新闻网站，最近，他们又通过了一项法律，赋予了政府极大的干预社交媒体的权力。
And India, the world's largest democracy, leads the world in deliberate Internet shutdowns.
世界上最大的民主国家印度在蓄意关闭互联网方面也走在了世界前列。
"Turning off the internet is becoming a defining tool of government repression."
“关闭互联网正在成为政府压制的核心工具。”
"Internet access shut down", "Imposed an internet blackout", "Ethiopia", "Liberia", "Venezuela", "Pakistan", "taken offline."
“关闭互联网访问权限”，“造成互联网中断；“埃塞俄比亚”、“利比里亚”、“委内瑞拉”、“巴基斯坦”，“被关闭”。
As governments decide that a world wide web doesn't suit their interests,
各国政府纷纷认定全球共享的网络不符合他们的利益，
we end up with a fractured internet, what some call "the splinternet"
世界便只剩下了一个支离破碎的网络，也就是一些人说说的“分裂的互联网”，
where national borders increasingly dictate what information people can access online.
国界规定着人们在网上可以获取到哪些信息。
Now it's up to democratic countries to reimagine an open internet worth fighting for.
如今，民主国家是时候为一个值得为之奋斗的开放式互联网重新放飞想象的翅膀了。
Instead, the US is threatening to ban a platform used by millions of Americans.
美国却选择了以封禁数百万美国人都在使用的一个平台为要挟。
"The US benefits from having technological leadership,
“拥有技术领先地位对美国有利，
it benefits from promoting a democratic Internet model and contesting authoritarianism.
推动互联网朝着民主方向发展，对抗威权对美国也有利。
And so abdicating leadership on that front is not good in the own interests of the US either.
放弃这方面的领导权便违背了美国的自身利益。
TikTok created a uniquely international platform.
抖音创建了一个独特的国际平台。
But it emerged onto an internet that wasn't quite ready for it.
问题就在于它出现的时候，互联网还没有做好迎接它的准备。
So now it's forcing the issue: When authoritarian states assert control over online speech,
如今，美国亟需表态的是：当主张权威的国家掌控了网络言论，
should the US respond by doing the same thing?
美国是否应该用主张权威的方式来解决这一问题？
