澳大利亞的野火造成了悲劇性的損失，引發(fā)了虛假信息之戰(zhàn)

澳大利亞的野火造成了悲劇性的損失，引發(fā)了虛假信息之戰(zhàn)

Australia is struggling to cope with deadly infernos and faces losing nearly a billion animals in the terrible bushfires — but in the midst of those tragedies, authorities are also battling hoaxes and misinformation, including false reports of widespread arson. Many of the claims seek to suggest that arson, not climate change, was a key driver of the historic fires.

澳大利亞正在努力應對致命的地獄之火，并面臨著在可怕的森林大火中失去近10億只動物的危險——但在這些悲劇的同時，有關當局還在與惡作劇和虛假信息作斗爭，其中包括關于大范圍縱火的虛假報道。許多聲明試圖表明，縱火是歷史上的火災的關鍵驅動因素，而不是氣候變化。

The hashtag #ArsonEmergency began trending shortly after the new year. Queensland University of Technology researcher Timothy Graham says he identified troll in social media accounts that tried to shift the narrative about the fires as being the work of dozens of criminals.

新年過后不久，#縱火案#的標簽開始走紅。昆士蘭科技大學研究員蒂莫西·格雷厄姆表示，他發(fā)現(xiàn)了在社交媒體賬戶上試圖改變火災說法的挑釁帖子是數(shù)十名罪犯所為。

"We studied about 300 Twitter accounts driving the #ArsonEmergency hashtag to identify inauthentic behavior," Graham said Friday in an essay for The Conversation, which he co-wrote with fellow researcher Tobias Keller.

“我們研究了大約300個推特賬號，這些賬號都被貼上了‘縱火案’的標簽，以識別不真實的行為，”格雷厄姆周五在為《對話》雜志撰寫的一篇文章中說。他和同事托拜厄斯·凱勒共同撰寫了這篇文章。

"We found many accounts using #ArsonEmergency were behaving 'suspiciously,' compared to those using #AustraliaFire and #BushfireAustralia," they said. "Accounts peddling #ArsonEmergency carried out activity similar to what we've witnessed in past disinformation campaigns, such as the coordinated behavior of Russian trolls during the 2016 US presidential election."

他們表示:“我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，與使用‘澳大利亞森林大火’和‘布什森林大火’的賬戶相比，許多使用‘縱火案’的賬戶行為‘可疑’。”“兜售‘縱火案’的賬戶所進行的活動，與我們在過去的虛假信息宣傳活動中所看到的類似，比如2016年美國總統(tǒng)大選期間俄羅斯網(wǎng)絡流氓的協(xié)調行為。”

As for who mounted the social media campaign to push the arson narrative, Graham and Keller say that while software tools allowed them to identify bots and trolls, they weren't able to trace the bogus accounts to any specific people or entities.

至于是誰發(fā)起了這場社交媒體運動來推動縱火的說法，格雷厄姆和凱勒表示，雖然軟件工具讓他們能夠識別機器人和噴子，但他們無法追蹤到任何特定的人或實體的虛假賬戶。

While arson has historically been one of the causes of Australian wildfires, the country is facing an unprecedented bushfire disaster. Since September, fires have now consumed an area larger than the states of Massachusetts and New Hampshire combined.

雖然縱火歷來是澳大利亞野火的原因之一，但該國正面臨前所未有的叢林火災災難。自9月以來，大火已經(jīng)吞噬了比馬薩諸塞州和新罕布什爾州加起來還要大的區(qū)域。

And a new "megafire" was created Friday when two blazes joined — covering nearly 1.5 million acres, as NPR's Scott Neuman reports.

據(jù)NPR新聞的斯科特·紐曼報道，周五，兩場大火同時發(fā)生，面積近150萬英畝，形成了新的“大火”。

The #ArsonEmergency campaign seems to have peaked around Tuesday, when thousands of tweets used the hashtag, Graham and Keller say.

格雷厄姆和凱勒表示，這場“縱火案”似乎在周二左右達到了頂峰，當時有數(shù)千條推文使用了這個標簽。

Around the same time the bot campaign hit its crescendo, news stories about the wildfires also touted a police report in hard-hit New South Wales, where authorities recently announced that they have taken legal action against more than 180 people for fire-related offenses. But only a small fraction of those people face charges that might be construed as arson, and the figure also spans a period that began in late 2019.

與此同時，有關野火的新聞報道也在重災區(qū)新南威爾士州宣傳了一份警方報告。新南威爾士州當局最近宣布，他們已經(jīng)對180多名因火災相關罪行而被起訴的人采取了法律行動。但其中只有一小部分人面臨可能被視為縱火的指控，而且這一數(shù)字也開始于2019年底。

The NSW police said that while 24 people were charged with deliberately lighting bushfires, 53 faced legal actions — which include a warning — for not complying with a statewide ban on fires. And the overall number also includes 47 people who were accused of not properly disposing of lit cigarettes or matches.

新南威爾士州警方表示，雖然有24人被控故意點燃山火，但有53人因不遵守全州范圍內(nèi)的禁火令而面臨法律訴訟，其中包括警告?？側藬?shù)還包括47人，他們被指控沒有妥善處理點燃的香煙或火柴。

Conservatives in the U.S. also picked up on the arson thread, with President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., retweeting a post about the arrests in New South Wales.

美國保守派人士也關注了縱火事件，特朗普總統(tǒng)的兒子小唐納德·特朗普轉發(fā)了一條有關新南威爾士州逮捕事件的帖子。

Australia's ABC reports, "Some of the misinformation includes the idea left-wing 'ecoterrorists' are behind some fires."

澳大利亞廣播公司報道稱，“一些錯誤信息包括左翼‘生態(tài)恐怖分子’是一些火災的幕后操縱者。”

On Friday, an employee of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp in Australia raised concerns about the company's coverage of the wildfires, accusing the publisher of newspapers such as The Australian and the Herald Sun of carrying out an irresponsible "misinformation campaign."

上周五，魯珀特•默多克旗下新聞集團在澳大利亞的一名員工對該公司對森林大火的報道提出了擔憂，指責《澳大利亞人報》和《先驅太陽報》等報紙的出版商進行了不負責任的“誤報運動”。