世界温和情绪与伊斯兰国的数字战争

Last week, I was browsing the internet for information about the tragic attack in Nice on Bastille Day, when I spotted a story that suggested disturbing new images were circulating of the Isis attacks on Paris inside the Bataclan theatre late last year. I was about to click “Search” — but then I had a second thought and stopped.

不久前，我在互联网上搜索有关尼斯“巴士底日”（Bastille Day，即法国国庆日）悲惨袭击的信息时，发现一则报道称有一些新的骇人图片在流传，这些图片反映的是去年年底“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国”(ISIS)在巴黎巴塔克兰剧院(Bataclan theatre)的那场袭击。我想点击“搜索”——但转念一想又停住了。

Until recently, I assumed that one of the great benefits of the internet was that it could give access to any information we wanted, any time we wanted. But, as the fight with Islamist extremism intensifies I now realise that this privilege has turned into a curse. These days, the war is not only being waged on the battlefield, or shopping malls and seaside parades; a second front has opened up in cyber space and inside our minds. And what makes this second — largely hidden — fight so insidious is that it involves all of us, sitting in our own homes in front of our computer screens or mobile phones.

直到最近，我认为互联网最伟大的好处之一是，它可以让我们随时找到我们想要的任何信息。但是，随着我们与伊斯兰极端主义的战斗不断升级，现在我意识到，互联网带给我们的这一特权变成了一种诅咒。如今，这场战争不仅在战场上、购物中心和海边游行队伍中进行，并且已经在网络空间和我们的思想中开辟了第二战场。这个基本上为隐蔽状态的第二战场之所以是巨大的隐患，原因就在于，它涉及到我们所有人——当我们坐在自己家中，对着电脑屏幕或手机时。

The reason is that Isis has taken the media game to a new level. In the past, terrorist and insurgent groups have often used the media to propagate their messages. What makes Isis unusual is that it is not only extraordinarily adept at mastering modern media platforms but that it has made this a strategic priority. One goal is to spread fear. The other is to attract new recruits.

原因在于，ISIS已经把媒体游戏升级到了一个新水平。过去，恐怖分子和叛乱组织往往利用媒体传播其信息。ISIS的不同之处在于，它不仅非常熟练地掌握了现代媒体平台，还把这作为了一种战略重点。一个目的是散布恐惧，另一个目的是吸引新成员加入。

Its media outreach has been so effective that some US intelligence observers even suspect that Isis has studied western consumer giants to replicate their marketing tactics. More specifically, it seeks to build “audience engagement” and “reach”, creating memorable “content” that can be easily “shared”. Hence those horrific images of beheadings and so on. Indeed, reports suggest that Isis has recently even put GoPro cameras on the end of guns to produce images that will appeal to millennial video game players.

ISIS的媒体推广之有效，以至于美国一些情报观察者甚至认为，它已经研究过西方消费行业巨头，以效仿它们的营销策略。更具体地说，ISIS寻求建立“受众互动”和“接触”，创造容易“分享”的令人难忘的“内容”。因此，才会有那些展示斩首等画面的可怕图片。的确，报告称ISIS最近甚至把GoPro摄像机装在枪支末端，以拍摄可以吸引千禧一代视频游戏玩家的影像。

Can anyone fight back? Until recently, it has seemed not. But this week alliance officials have been meeting in Washington to discuss tactics. “We have been talking about how we can use social media to catch this stuff before it radicalises people,” Boris Johnson, UK foreign minister said on Friday.

有人能予以反击吗？直到最近，答案似乎是否定的。但是，盟军官员最近在华盛顿召开会议讨论了策略。“我们讨论了如何在这些内容使人们变得激进前，利用社交媒体找到它们，”英国外交大臣鲍里斯•约翰逊(Boris Johnson)上周五表示。

And if Rick Stengel, a senior State Department official who used to be editor of Time magazine, is to be believed, the tactics are changing. In particular the US government realises it is unlikely to succeed by producing its own American-branded content, which tends to be too clunky and dull. Instead, US officials are encouraging moderate Muslim groups to produce anti-Isis material. “Isil is losing the digital war,” Stengel recently told the Aspen Ideas Festival. “Over the last year, there has been an exponential increase in anti-Isil voices . . . [these are] creating six times as much content as Isil is creating.”

如果《时代》(Time)杂志前主编、美国国务院(State Department)高级官员里克•施滕格尔(Rick Stengel)的话可信的话，策略正在改变。特别是美国政府认识到，不太可能通过制作美国品牌的内容取得成功，因为这些内容往往老套又枯燥。相反，美国官员正在鼓励温和派穆斯林群体制作反ISIS的材料。“ISIS即将输掉这场数字化战争，”施滕格尔最近在阿斯彭理念节(Aspen Ideas festival)表示，“过去一年，反对ISIS的声音呈指数式增长……（这些声音）制造的内容是ISIS的6倍。”

At the same time, Silicon Valley — under US government pressure — has also become more efficient at removing Isis content from the web. Academics at George Washington University, for example, have been tracking Isis’s presence on Twitter — and while it was increasing rapidly two years ago, it is now declining: accounts associated with the group are rapidly being closed down.

与此同时，在美国政府施压下，硅谷的那些科技公司从网上删除ISIS内容的效率也越来越高。例如，乔治华盛顿大学(George Washington University)的学者追踪了ISIS在Twitter上的存在，发现尽管两年前ISIS的存在增长迅速，但是现在正不断缩小：与该组织相关的账户正迅速被关闭。

That sounds encouraging. But there is a crucial catch. One of the more interesting statistics to emerge over the last couple of years is that — contrary to western perceptions — English is not the most prevalent language for Isis material. Instead, around 85 per cent of Isis’s social media posts are in Arabic, about 12 per cent in Russian — the rest in English or French.

这听起来令人振奋。但是，存在一个关键问题。过去几年出现的一个较有趣的数据是，英语并非ISIS材料最普遍使用的语言——这与西方的印象不同。相反，ISIS在社交媒体上发布的帖子有约85%用的是阿拉伯语，约12%用的是俄语，其余用的才是英语或法语。

In theory, this should hamper the spread of Isis messages in the west; in reality, however, the mainstream media has sometimes done Isis’s own “work”, by reproducing these messages — in translation. So have numerous websites and blogs. “Today beheading videos get taken down very fast, sometimes after just 25 views,” says Stengel. “Most people [in the west] see images [like beheadings] through the [western] media.”

从理论上讲，这应该会阻碍ISIS的信息在西方传播；然而，事实上，主流媒体有时会通过翻译复制这些信息，替ISIS完成他们自己的“工作”。不计其数的网站和博客都是如此。“现在斩首视频很快就会被删除，有时删除时的观看次数仅为25次，”施滕格尔称，“（西方）多数人是通过（西方）媒体看到的图片（比如斩首的图片）。”

Hence my moment of remorse earlier this week. In theory, one way to deal with this cyber war with Isis might be for US officials to ban the reproduction of Isis visual messages. Stengel is reluctant to back that idea. Instead, he calls for tasteful, thoughtful restraint. That sounds sensible — as a journalist I would argue that deliberate censorship is neither feasible nor desirable in a world ruled by the internet.

于是就有了开头那一幕——我先是想搜、一转念又停住了手。理论上，应对这场与ISIS的网络战争的一种方式，可能是美国官员明令禁止对ISIS的视觉信息进行复制。施滕格尔不愿支持该观点。相反，他呼吁有选择、经过思考地克制。这听起来是明智的——作为一名记者，我认为，在这个互联网所主宰的世界里，有计划的审查既不可行也不可取。

But can you really impose “restraint” in a world where media outlets are fighting for clicks? Where does censorship start and dignity begin? And how, above all, can you counter the natural human tendency towards voyeurism which turns “news” into “war porn”?

但是，在如今这个各媒体争夺点击量的世界里，你真的可以施加“克制”吗？审查从哪开始，体面何时入场？最重要的是，你能对抗人类把“新闻”变为“战争色情片”的窥探阴私天性吗？

There are no easy answers. But the stakes are rising. Moreover, this is a “war” in which we are all involved, since it is our minds that are being targeted with hate — and fear. Reflect on that the next time you see a picture of a terrorist outrage or hear about new atrocities; and before you press that seductively easy button labelled as “Search”.

这个问题没有简单答案。但是此事日益关系重大。此外，这是一场我们所有人都被卷入的“战争”，因为仇恨和恐惧瞄准的正是我们的思想。下一次当你看到有关恐怖分子暴行的图片或新暴行的新闻时，在你轻轻点击那个充满诱惑力的标有“搜索”的按钮前，请想一想这一点。