Raising further questions about privacy on the internet, researchers from Princeton and Stanford universities have released a study showing that a specific person's online behavior can be identified by linking anonymous web browsing histories with social media profiles.

 

来自普林斯顿大学和斯坦福大学的研究人员的一份调查报告，引起了人们对互联网隐私问题的进一步关注：只需将匿名网页浏览历史与社交媒体资料关联起来，你在网络上的一举一动便一览无余。

 

"We show that browsing histories can be linked to social media profiles such as Twitter, Facebook or Reddit accounts," the researchers wrote in a paper scheduled for presentation at the 2017 World Wide Web Conference Perth, Australia, in April."

 

“我们的调查结果显示，浏览历史可以被关联到诸如推特，脸书，红迪网之类的社交媒体资料上。”研究人员在一份将用于4月份澳大利亚珀斯2017万维网会议的文件上这样写道。

 

"It is already known that some companies, such as Google and Facebook, track users online and know their identities," said Arvind Narayanan, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton and one of the authors of the research article.

 

“我们已经知道，有一些公司会追踪用户的上网足迹，知道用户的身份，比如谷歌和脸书。”普林斯顿计算机科学的助理教授、这篇研究报告的作者之一阿尔温德·纳拉亚兰如是说道。

 

"But those companies, which consumers choose to create accounts with, disclose their tracking.The new research shows that anyone with access to browsing histories -- a great number of companies and organizations -- can identify many users by analyzing public information from social media accounts,"Narayanan said.

 

纳拉亚兰说，用户可能会认为，在浏览一些新闻网站或者健康网站的时候，自己是匿名的，但是研究报告却向大家展示了这些公司通过一些手段确定用户身份的可能性。

 

In the article, the authors note that online advertising companies build browsing histories of users with tracking programs embedded on webpages. Some advertisers attach identities to these profiles, but most promise that the web browsing information is not linked to anyone's identity.

 

研究报告中，作者记录道：在线广告公司将追踪程序嵌入网页，从而建立起用户浏览记录的档案。一些广告商会将用户的身份添加至这些档案文件中，不过绝大多数的商家都承诺，用户在浏览这些网站时，其身份信息是安全的。

 

"Each person's browsing history is unique and contains tell-tale signs of their identity," said Sharad Goel, an assistant professor at Stanford and an author of the study."

 

每个人的浏览历史都是独一无二的，而这里面处处包含着暴露其身份的蛛丝马迹。”斯坦福大学的助理教授，同时也是研究报告作者之一的夏瑞德·高尔这样说道。

Past studies have found that people have a tendency to use more positive-inflected words than negative ones ― "fantastic" rather than "awful," for example ― a trend that linguists refer to as "positive linguistic bias." Does our proportion of optimistic versus pessimistic verbiage actually change as our circumstances change, or are we set in our ways?

 

以往的研究表明，相比消极性的词汇，人们倾向于使用更具积极意味的词汇。比如，更喜欢用“美妙的（fantastic）”而非“糟糕的（awful）”。语言学家将这种倾向称作“积极语言偏向（positive linguistic bias）”。那么，在周遭环境改变时，我们的“乐观用语”和“悲观用语”所占比例是否真的会发生变化呢?还是说，我们的措词风格是一成不变的呢？

 

The study found that throughout the time span covered by the study, positive linguistic bias showed fluctuations "predicted by changes in objective environment, i.e., war and economic hardships, and by changes in national subjective happiness."

 

该研究发现，在他们涉及到的整个时间跨度内，“积极语言偏向”出现了一些波动，“正巧对应于客观环境的变化，比如战争和经济困难时期，以及全国人民主观幸福感的变化”。

 

To measure this phenomenon over time, the study’s authors examined the text of the New York Times and Google Books over the past 200 years. In addition to shifts in the predominance of optimistic language that correlate to times of national suffering or lower happiness levels, the study also found an overall decrease in positive words over the two centuries covered by the study. However, the latter conclusion should be taken with a few grains of salt for now, other researchers argue. Linguist Mark Liberman pointed out to the Times that tracking the tone of word choice over such a large period risks confounding overall changes in language with a decrease in positive word choice.

 

为了检测这种现象随时间的变化情况，研究者们统计了过去200多年的《纽约时报》和《谷歌图书》文本。除了发现在国难中或者幸福感较低的年代里“乐观语言”的主宰地位会发生动摇之外，研究人员还发现在他们涉足的两个多世纪里积极性词汇的使用率整体呈下降趋势。然而，其他一些研究者辩解说，第二项结论目前尚不足以令人信服。语言学家马克•利伯曼向《纽约时报》指出，在这么长的时间段里追踪措词的感情色彩，如果语言本身整体在改变，能选择的积极性词汇本来就在减少，那么研究结果就可能受到影响。

 

As with any single study, questions remain. The study’s authors suggested the need for more research into whether "objective circumstances and subjective mood have independent roles" in affecting positivity in language. The study found that "in the years when the level of national subjective happiness in the United States was lower, [linguistic positivity bias] tended to be lower also."

 

和其它任何研究一样，该研究还存在一些问题。研究者们暗示说，还需要做更多的研究，进一步调查是不是“客观环境和主观情感能独立地”影响语言的“积极性”。研究发现，“在全美国主观幸福感较低的年代，【积极语言偏向】现象也相应较弱”。

 

Unlike war and famine, however, it’s conceivable that national subjective happiness could be influenced by the tenor of national media ― or social media. During the past election cycle, a Vox Twitter analysis showed the new president-elect, Donald Trump, used significantly more negative words ("bad," "crooked," "dumb," "worst") than his opponent, Hillary Clinton, did. Was he more successfully tapping into a national mood of misery, or was this campaign language fostering a sense of despair and outrage? Or was it, perhaps, a little bit of both?

 

但是，可想而知，国家的主观幸福感与战争和饥荒不同，前者会受到国家主流媒体基调或者说社会化媒体的影响。在刚刚过去的总统大选中，VOX公司所作的一篇推文分析表明，新总统当选人唐纳德•特朗普使用的消极性词汇（“坏的”、“不正当的”、“愚蠢的”、“更糟的”）明显多于对手希拉里•克林顿。是他更成功地响应了举国上下的悲凄情绪吗，还是说他的竞选语言助长了人们的绝望和愤怒？或者，有可能，两者都沾边儿？

 

本文链接：http://www.phenglish.cn/reading/2017-02-24/1024.html