社交媒體時代的聲譽危機管理

Review: ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’ Delves Into Infamy in the Age of Social Media

社交媒體時代的聲譽危機管理

One of the people Jon Ronson interviewed for his latest book asked him a tough question. “Given that my previous books were about such frivolous topics as military psychics (‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’) and conspiracy theorists (‘Them: Adventures With Extremists’), why did I suppose my readers would be interested in the important question of public shaming?” Mr. Ronson was asked. Since his writerly persona is that of a stellar entertainer-explorer-clown, humiliation does seem weightier and less breezy than what he usually likes to handle.

喬恩·龍森(Jon Ronson)為了創(chuàng)作新書采訪了一些人，其中一人問了他一個尖銳的問題——“你之前的書都是討論一些沒什么意義的話題，比如《瞪著羊群的人》(The Men Who Stare at Goats)討論特異功能軍事部隊，《他們：與極端主義者的冒險》(Them: Adventures With Extremists)討論陰謀論者，你覺得你的讀者怎么會對公眾聲譽這種事情感興趣呢?”的確，龍森的作家形象一直是一個善于探索又兼具娛樂精神的小丑，和龍森以往處理的話題相比，公共聲譽這個話題顯得有點沉重和嚴(yán)肅了。

But the choice of subject for “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” turns out to be gutsy and smart. Without losing any of the clever agility that makes his books so winning, he has taken on truly consequential material and risen to the challenge. His overall point is something we already understand: Public shaming in the age of social media has the kind of power that no form of shaming ever had before.

但事實證明，這本書的話題選擇是大膽而明智的?！赌阋驯还_羞辱》繼承了龍森廣受讀者歡迎的風(fēng)格：機靈、敏銳。此外，他還采用了非常重要的素材，并克服了可讀性的難題。龍森的大致觀點我們并不陌生：在社交媒體的時代，聲譽的毀壞往往帶來巨大影響，這是之前的時代無法企及的。

Mr. Ronson sets out to find specific examples of public missteps and the revenge they attracted, trying to grasp some sense of proportion between the two, or at least figure out the rules of the game. He digs deeply into a few things you already know about and many you probably don’t. He explores the reputation-fixing business, to both sad and hilarious effect. And he draws surprising conclusions about what kind of response to shaming can quash it.

龍森找到一些關(guān)于公共領(lǐng)域內(nèi)個人過失的特別例子，以及這些過失所招來的報復(fù)，并試圖抓住二者之間的某種相關(guān)性，或者至少解釋這個游戲的規(guī)則。他闡述的事例有些是我們知道的，不過大部分我們可能并不了解。他研究危機公關(guān)這個行業(yè)，研究它帶來的既可悲又可笑的影響。關(guān)于怎樣才能應(yīng)對聲譽危機，龍森做出的結(jié)論令人驚訝。

Case in point: Max Mosley, the son of the British fascist Oswald Mosley, was caught by the British tabloid News of the World in an alleged “Nazi” orgy involving prostitutes and German military uniforms. News of the World subsequently went out of business. Max Mosley never denied anything except the idea that Nazi trappings were involved. He sued the newspaper, won the case, shrugged the whole thing off and remains the same happy, kinky guy.

一個例子是：英國法西斯主義者奧斯瓦爾德·莫斯利(Oswald Mosley)的兒子馬科斯·莫斯利(Max Mosley)曾被英國小報《世界新聞報》(News of the World)曝出參加了“納粹”主題的狂歡會，派對上不光有妓女還有德國軍裝。《世界新聞報》隨后倒閉。除了納粹服飾這一點外，馬科斯·莫斯利自始至終沒有否認(rèn)過其他說法。他起訴了報社，贏得了官司，然后把這事兒拋在了腦后，一如既往地快活和變態(tài)。

“So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” begins with a mini-example involving the author, just to give a taste of how aggravating Twitter can be. He finds a fake @Jon_Ronson tweeting and discovers that the spambot is the creation of a team of academics. When he tweets to ask them to take the spambot down, the response is “We prefer the term infomorph.” This spat isn’t much, but it’s a good lead-in to the book’s first major episode: the outing of the popular writer Jonah Lehrer for including fake quotes from Bob Dylan in his book “Imagine,” which was subsequently withdrawn and pulped. This episode made headlines when it happened. But Mr. Ronson has the tangled story of what Mr. Lehrer’s shaming was really about.

《你已被公開羞辱》以作者本人的一個小故事開篇，展示出推特強大煽動性的冰山一角。龍森發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個假的“@Jon_Ronson” 推特賬號，該賬號產(chǎn)生于一個由某學(xué)術(shù)團隊制作的垃圾程序。當(dāng)他發(fā)送私信要求他們關(guān)閉這個垃圾程序時，他們回應(yīng)說“我們更傾向于說是信息更正”。這是件小事，不過很好地引出了書的第一章：人氣作家喬納·萊勒(Jonah Lehrer)被人識破在《想象》(Imagine)一書中捏造了鮑勃·迪倫(Bob Dylan)的引言，該書隨后被召回并銷毀。這件事在當(dāng)時轟動一時，萊納遭到羞辱是一個復(fù)雜的事件，龍森從中找出了它的真正意義。

This book’s he said/he said is as fascinating as it is awful. It combines the stories of Mr. Lehrer and Michael C. Moynihan, the Dylanologist who spotted the fake Dylan quotes. They were truly inconsequential: Mr. Lehrer had just tacked on a little extra verbiage to things Dylan had really said. They probably wouldn’t have done him ruinous damage. It was lying about them that did that trick.

龍森在書中給出了兩邊不同的糟糕說法，顯得非常巧妙。他把萊勒和邁克爾 C. 莫伊尼漢(Michael C. Moynihan)的故事結(jié)合在了一起 。莫伊尼漢是個迪倫專家，是他發(fā)現(xiàn)萊勒書中的迪倫采訪引語涉嫌造假。這些話其實并不要緊：萊勒只是給迪倫實際說的話加了些冗余。其實這或許本不會為他帶來毀滅性的后果，是說謊這件事釀成了苦果。

As Mr. Lehrer says to Mr. Ronson, who admits he had to do a lot of disingenuous flattering and agreeing with Mr. Lehrer to get this information, once he had insisted the quotes were real and begun trying to fake their provenance, he was cooked. His self-pity and lack of insight are stunning. The more he lied, the more of a challenge he gave Mr. Moynihan, who sounds as if he didn’t want this fiasco any more than Mr. Lehrer did. “It was like they were both in a car with failed brakes, hurtling helplessly toward this ending together,” Mr. Ronson writes.

龍森承認(rèn)，為了讓萊勒開口，他對萊勒說了好多不真誠的恭維話，假裝同意萊勒的做法。最后萊勒告訴龍森說，當(dāng)自己堅持稱引語為真，并且試圖偽造出處的那一刻，他的悲劇真正開始了。他的自憐和愚蠢讓人驚訝。他愈是說謊，就讓莫伊尼漢愈感到困擾。莫伊尼漢似乎和萊勒一樣不愿意陷入這場災(zāi)難。“他們像是在同一輛剎車失靈的汽車上，絕望地攜手沖向了終點”，龍森寫道。

Mr. Moynihan reached the point at which too many people knew about his full exposé for him not to publish it. As for Mr. Lehrer, he made a public apology with a giant Twitter feed on a screen behind him, so that reactions were visible in real time. For a while he played it genuinely contrite, and viewers were willing to forgive him. But then he blew it so badly that the hate-on began, and talk turned to his $20,000 fee for the event at which he was speaking. All was lost, as in: “Wish I could get $20,000 to say that I’m a lying dirtbag.”

由于太多人知道真相，莫伊尼漢不得不將自己的文章發(fā)表。而萊勒的情況是，他在電視上當(dāng)眾道歉，背后的大屏幕上是Twitter網(wǎng)站上的賬號，可以實時看到公眾對此的反應(yīng)。他的悔悟一度顯得很真誠，讀者也愿意原諒他。但是之后，他讓這些都飛走了，公眾的憤怒隨之而來，輿論轉(zhuǎn)向他2萬美金的演講出場費。 “我也想說我是個說謊的人渣，然后拿2萬美金”，自這條評論出現(xiàn)，萊勒功虧一簣。

Less well-known, really shocking parts of the book tell of two guys making dumb jokes at a conference for tech developers. One of them made a nerdy, techy joke with sexual overtones, at which point a woman in front of him stood up, turned around and took his picture. She posted it on Twitter and was very proud of herself. (“Yesterday the future of programming was on the line and I made myself heard.”) He lost his job. He posted an apology that included the fact that he had three children to support, and the woman demanded that he remove that information. Who suffered more? He was out of work; she remained smug; but she became subject to vicious sexual comments on the web bulletin board 4chan/b/.

還有一個不那么為人所知的故事，也是這本書中令人震驚的一個片段：兩個人在一個會議上給科技從業(yè)者講冷笑話。其中一個人用性挑逗的口吻開了一個愚蠢的科技玩笑，這時他前面的女人站起身來轉(zhuǎn)向他，拍了照片。她把照片發(fā)到推特上，為此得意洋洋(“昨天，編程的未來岌岌可危，我發(fā)出了自己的聲音。”)結(jié)果他丟掉了工作。他發(fā)布了道歉，說他有三個孩子要撫養(yǎng)，女人要求他去掉這部分信息。最后誰受了更多痛苦?他丟掉了工作;她繼續(xù)自鳴得意，但她卻在論壇 “4chan/b/”上備受攻擊，人們用帶有性意味的惡毒語言辱罵她。

Another woman whose story is told here is Lindsey Stone, who liked to be photographed doing stupid things and really outdid herself by making an obscene gesture at Arlington National Cemetery. In her case, Mr. Ronson arranged a matchup between Ms. Stone the pariah and Reputation.com, which gave her its top-flight Internet life makeover.

書中還講到另一個女人的故事——林賽·斯通(Lindsey Stone)。她喜歡把做的傻事拍下來。有一次玩大了，斯通在阿靈頓國家公墓做了一個下流的手勢。龍森為斯通這個社會棄兒和Reputation.com網(wǎng)牽線，這個網(wǎng)站給了她頂級待遇，幫她在網(wǎng)絡(luò)改頭換面。

One problem with Ms. Stone: Aside from the hate-mongering photograph, she wasn’t on the web at all. So Reputation.com started grilling her for interesting details, and the results were ... resultant. “Are cats important to you?” “Absolutely.” Career history? Five years at Walmart. Ms. Stone wasn’t going to be easy.

一個問題是，除了這張招來恨意的照片，斯通在網(wǎng)上其實沒有什么東西。所以Reputation.com網(wǎng)開始盤問她，想知道一些有趣的細(xì)節(jié)，結(jié)果是……就是個結(jié)果而已。“貓對你來說重要嗎?”“當(dāng)然。”職業(yè)歷程?在沃爾瑪工作了五年。斯通沒想表現(xiàn)得輕松。

But the team was relentless, creating accounts for her on various sites, posting pictures of her anywhere but at Arlington, writing blog posts. Throughout this whole process, there were only two posts she had to nix. One said: “Happy Birthday, Disneyland! The happiest place on earth!” Mr. Ronson’s gift for detail-picking is, as ever, a treat.

但是團隊堅持不懈，為她在不同網(wǎng)站上開通了賬號，發(fā)布她除去阿靈頓公墓以外的照片，為她寫博客。在整個過程中，只有兩張照片斯通沒允許發(fā)布，其中一張說：“生日快樂，迪士尼樂園!地球上最開心的地方!”一如既往，龍森對這種細(xì)節(jié)的挑選天賦，是讀者的幸福。

So what does he learn? That even the toughest advocates of old-fashioned shaming techniques think their tactics pale beside social media. And that social media has made people afraid, Mr. Ronson thinks, to speak freely, lest they inadvertently become targets for some crazy reason. Its anonymity magnifies groupthink, and it lets us forget one victim as we move on to the next. A Gawker writer who savaged one woman told Mr. Ronson in the book that she’d be fine — eventually. “Everyone’s attention span is so short. They’ll be mad about something new today.”

那么，龍森學(xué)到了什么呢?在社交媒體面前，傳統(tǒng)聲譽操縱策略最忠實的擁護者也會相形見絀。龍森認(rèn)為，社交媒體讓人們害怕暢所欲言，唯恐不經(jīng)意間因為一些奇怪的原因突然變成瘋子的攻擊對象。社交媒體的匿名性放大了群體思維，我們在轉(zhuǎn)向下一個目標(biāo)時，就忘了這次的受害者。在書中，一名抨擊過一個女人的摑客網(wǎng)(Gawker)寫手告訴龍森，那女人最后會沒事的。“每個人的注意力時間段都非常短暫的。他們只會對今天的新鮮事感到狂熱。”