现在,想象你是我五岁的孩子, 你的互联网世界 大部分是由可爱的小狗和精灵组成的, 偶尔会有驾着小狗的精灵。 真有这个角色,谷歌一下。 但我们大部分人都知道, 互联网也可以是一个非常丑陋的地方。 我说的不是有关有色人种这样的讨论, 我还觉得这对我们的民主是有好处的。 我说的是那些卑劣的人身攻击。 你可能遭遇过这样的事情, 但这种事情的发生几率会至少提升两倍, 而且会更加恶劣, 如果你是女性,有色人种,或者同性恋, 或者同时兼有以上属性。 事实上,就在我写这篇演讲的时候, 我发现一个叫做@混蛋萨莉科恩的推特账号, (译者注:萨莉·科恩是讲者的名字) 此人的介绍上说我是一个 ”仇视男性者,一个强壮的女同性恋, 在我的生活中唯一成功的事 就是传播我堕落的性生活,” 顺便说一下,只说对了三分之一。 我的意思是,放屁!(大笑)
但是认真想想,我们都说我们恨这种屁话, 问题是你是否愿意做出 个人的牺牲去改变这种情况。 我不是说放弃互联网。 我是说改变我们点击的方式。 因为点击是一个公共行为。 如今已经不再是 少数精英完全控制媒体 而我们其他人只是被动接受者。 逐渐地,我们都成为媒体了。 我常想,噢,好,我穿上正装, 抹上一堆化妆品, 上电视播报新闻。 这是制造媒体的公共行为。 然后我回家,浏览网站, 上推特, 这是消费媒体的私人行为。 我的意思是,当然是私人的, 因为我还穿着睡衣呢。 错了。 每一篇我们发表的博客, 每一句我们发表的推特的内容, 还有每一个我们点击的内容, 都是制造媒体的公共行为。 我们是新时代的编辑。 我们将自己的关注给什么样的内容 决定了什么内容将获得关注。 这就是现在媒体的运作方式。 有各种隐藏的算法在决定 你看哪些内容更多,我们大家看哪些内容更多, 这些都取决于你点击的内容, 然后这种点击塑造了我们整个的文化。
其实完全可以不必如此。 不必如此。 我们可以改变动机。 作为新手,我们可以做两件事。 第一,当你看到有人受伤了, 不要只是站来旁边旁观。 如果有人在网上被侮辱,你要出些力。 做一个英雄。这是你的机会。 大声说出你的观点,做一个好人。 用正义压倒邪恶。 第二,停止点击那些 迎合大众口味的,低层次的 链接。 如果你不喜欢卡戴珊(译者注:美国巨乳女星)的 那些新闻, 你就停止点击有关 金·卡戴珊的乳房的图片。 我知道你点了。(鼓掌) 看起来你也是。 我说真的,同样的例子: 如果你不喜欢政治家们彼此对骂, 你就不要点击那些 这个政党的一个家伙 骂另一个政党里的家伙的故事。 点击火车失事的消息只是火上浇油, 这让事情更糟糕,火蔓延开, 我们的整个文化都烧起来。
So recently, some white guys and some black women swapped Twitter avatars, or pictures online.They didn’t change their content, they kept tweeting the same as usual, but suddenly, the white guys noticed they were getting called the n-word all the time and they were getting the worst kind of online abuse, whereas the black women all of a sudden noticed things got a lot more pleasant for them.
Now, if you’re my five-year-old, your Internet consists mostly of puppies and fairies and occasionally fairies riding puppies. That’s a thing. Google it. But the rest of us know that the Internet can be a really ugly place. I’m not talking about the kind of colorful debates that I think are healthy for our democracy. I’m talking about nasty personal attacks. Maybe it’s happened to you, but it’s at least twice as likely to happen, and be worse, if you’re a woman, a person of color, or gay, or more than one at the same time. In fact, just as I was writing this talk, I found a Twitter account called @SallyKohnSucks. The bio says that I’m a “man-hater and a bull dyke and the only thing I’ve ever accomplished with my career is spreading my perverse sexuality.” Which, incidentally, is only a third correct. I mean, lies! (Laughter)
But seriously, we all say we hate this crap. The question is whether you’re willing to make a personal sacrifice to change it. I don’t mean giving up the Internet. I mean changing the way you click, because clicking is a public act. It’s no longer the case that a few powerful elites control all the media and the rest of us are just passive receivers. Increasingly, we’re all the media. I used to think, oh, okay, I get dressed up, I put on a lot of makeup, I go on television, I talk about the news.That is a public act of making media. And then I go home and I browse the web and I’m reading Twitter, and that’s a private act of consuming media. I mean, of course it is. I’m in my pajamas.Wrong. Everything we blog, everything we Tweet, and everything we click is a public act of making media. We are the new editors. We decide what gets attention based on what we give our attention to. That’s how the media works now. There’s all these hidden algorithms that decidewhat you see more of and what we all see more of based on what you click on, and that in turn shapes our whole culture.
Over three out of five Americans think we have a major incivility problem in our country right now,but I’m going to guess that at least three out of five Americans are clicking on the same insult-oriented, rumor-mongering trash that feeds the nastiest impulses in our society. In an increasingly noisy media landscape, the incentive is to make more noise to be heard, and that tyranny of the loud encourages the tyranny of the nasty.
It does not have to be that way. It does not. We can change the incentive. For starters, there are two things we can all do. First, don’t just stand by the sidelines when you see someone getting hurt. If someone is being abused online, do something. Be a hero. This is your chance. Speak up. Speak out. Be a good person. Drown out the negative with the positive. And second, we’ve got to stop clicking on the lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeding linkbait. If you don’t like the 24/7 all Kardashian all the time programming, you’ve got to stop clicking on the stories about Kim Kardashian’s sideboob. I know you do it. (Applause) You too, apparently. I mean, really, same example: if you don’t like politicians calling each other names, stop clicking on the stories about what one guy in one party called the other guy in the other party. Clicking on a train wreck just pours gasoline on it. It makes it worse, the fire spreads. Our whole culture gets burned.