【经济学人】阿萨德辩护者|2017.04.15|总第880期

A COUPLE of days after the chemical weapons attack in Syria, some Twitter users in America began sharing a theory: the pictures had been concocted as a pretext for launching a missile attack. The notion was endorsed by Alex Jones, who runs a website called Infowars, which has successfully spread the idea that the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut was a hoax and that Hillary Clinton was involved in a paedophile ring run from a pizzeria in Washington, DC. Mr Jones was until recently a fervent supporter of Donald Trump. Campaigning last year, candidate Trump returned the favour: “Your reputation is amazing, I will not let you down,” Mr Trump said. Now, it seems, he has.

在叙利亚遭受化学武器袭击的几天后，美国的一些推特用户开始分享他们对这件事的推测：这张照片是为了寻找一个发动导弹攻击的借口而捏造的。而这个推测也得到了艾利克斯-琼斯的支持，艾利克斯-琼斯拥有经营一家名为Infowars的新闻网站，这家新闻网站曾成功的向大众传播了关于发生在美国康涅狄格州的桑迪•胡克小学枪击案是一起伪造案件的观点，以及宣称希拉里被卷入了华盛顿一加由披萨店经营的恋童癖团伙的丑闻。琼斯近期还成为了唐纳德特朗普的狂热支持者，去年的大选，候选人特朗普公开表示感谢，他认为艾利克斯-琼斯的名声很大，他决不会让艾利克斯-琼斯失望的，现在看来，特朗普做到了。

• InFowars：:亚历克斯·琼斯之秀新闻网是一个综合的新闻类的信息网站，涉及众多领域，内容充实，拥有强大的互联网群众基础，该节目在全美60调幅和调频以上的无线电台通过创世纪通讯网络同步播出，拥有庞大的互联网群众基础。分为亚历克斯·琼斯广播秀，新闻，多媒体，监狱星球论坛，广告和商店六大板块。

• Sandy Hook school shooting：美国当地时间2012年12月14日上午9点40分，美国康涅狄格州纽敦(Newtown)县的桑迪•胡克(Sandy Hook)小学发生枪击案，造成28人丧生，其中20人是儿童。

• pizzeria：抹黑希拉里的假新闻困扰华盛顿的一家名为“彗星乒乓”(Comet Ping Pong)的披萨饼店。

The story of how Mr Jones fastened onto his Syria conspiracy has been pieced together by Ben Nimmo and Donara Barojan of the Atlantic Council, a think-tank.（读者试译） It begins in Syria, where a pro-Assad website published an article claiming that those who came to the aid of the attack’s victims were not wearing protective gloves, and therefore it must be a hoax. It also claimed that a TV station had inadvertently announced plans to cover the strike before it had taken place. This idea was then picked up by several websites, including the Centre for Research on Globalisation, a hub for conspiracy theories and fake stories.

（期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~）故事开始于叙利亚的一家支持阿萨德政权的网站发表了一篇文章，其中宣称那些来救助受害者的人没有戴防护手套，所以这一定是假的。他们也声称电视台在发生毒气袭击之前，有不经意宣布一个计划来掩盖这次袭击。这些观点被多家网站引用，其中包括一家专门为编造阴谋论与假故事所成立的全球研究中心。

From there it was a short hop to American conspiracy sites, such as Mr Jones’s Infowars, which claimed the whole thing was a “false-flag” operation funded by George Soros. Mike Cernovich, another conspiracy theorist, took a similar line and spread the phrase #SyriaHoax. It was given a bump by computer programs used to boost stories on social media (one Twitter account used #SyriaHoax 155 times). A foreign government might have had a hand in this: the Senate has heard testimony that Russia used this technique to spread fake news stories during last year’s election. Since April 6th, #SyriaHoax has been used in 192,000 tweets—85% of which originated in the United States. The hashtag reached 13.6m Twitter users in a single hour according to Keyhole, a social-media analytics firm. And that is how some self-publicists, posing as American patriots, became apologists for the Assad regime, which drops poison gas on children.

从那点来看，这很贴近诸如琼斯先生的Infowars这些美国阴谋论网站的说法，他们宣称整个事件是由乔治-索罗斯策划的。另一位阴谋论者麦克-斯诺维奇对此事持相同态度，他还在社交网络上传播“叙利亚骗局”的话题。之后，该话题借助社交媒体迅速传开（一个推特账户155次使用该话题）。外国政府可能也卷入了此次事件：参议院得到了一些证词，是关于俄罗斯在美国去年的大选时利用这种手法在网络上传播假新闻。自4月6日起，关于“叙利亚骗局”这一话题的推文已经有十九万两千条了，其中有85％的推文是来源于的美国。据一家分析公司“钥匙孔”统计，该话题曾在一小时内吸引了1360万推特用户。这就是一些美国的自我宣传者以爱国者的姿态为叙利亚阿萨德政权向儿童投毒气事件辩护。

• false-flag：伪旗行动，是隐蔽行动的一种，指通过使用其他组织的旗帜、制服等手段误导公众以为该行动由其他组织所执行的行动。假旗行动在谍报活动中非常常见，此外民间的政治选举也常有采用此法。 

• Keyhole：三维地图初创公司，大多数智能手机都在用它的技术，这家创立于2001年的硅谷初创公司，用三维地图引领了卫星图像革命，让用户可以在各个地点间“飞跃”。该技术名为EarthViewer，伊拉克战争中便为军队和新闻报道所用。谷歌在2004年收购了这家公司，将其技术融进了著名的“谷歌地球”和其他地图产品中。

翻译 ▍栏目六第一组

审核 ▍Arias

图文编辑 ▍太止

责任编辑丨毛毛