(单词翻译:单击)
正文文本
We'll start with the company being bought. Twitter is a social media giant.
我们从这家公司被收购开始谈起。 推特是社交媒体巨头。
Hundreds of millions around the world regularly use it sharing their thoughts and tweets that are limited to 280 characters or less.
全世界有数亿人经常使用推特来分享他们的想法、发布推文，这些信息的长度限制在280个字符以内。
The company has grown tremendously since it was founded in but it's been criticized for how it governs its users and the information they share.
该公司自成立以来发展迅速，但一直因其管理用户及其共享信息的方式而受到批评。
Many political conservatives for example have said Twitter has a double standard that it's more likely to censor the tweets or suspend the accounts of conservatives than it is of political liberals.
例如，许多政治保守派人士表示，推特有双重标准，它更可能审查保守派的推文或停用他们的账户，而不是政治自由派人士的账户。
Twitter has denied doing this saying its policies are based around users' behavior not where they stand politically,
推特否认这样做，称其政策是基于用户的行为，而不是他们的政治立场，
but there have been several instances of Twitter appearing to suppress or put warning labels on conservative publications.
但有几次推特似乎压制保守派发布的内容、或在其发布内容上贴警告标签。
That brings us to a question asked recently by billionaire businessman Elon Musk.
这让我们想到了亿万富商埃隆·马斯克最近提出的一个问题。
The founder of SpaceX has said in the past he's not a conservative, that he's an independent whose views are politically moderate.
这位美国太空探索技术公司(SpaceX)的创始人曾表示，过去他不是保守派，他是一个独立人士，政治观点温和。
But last month, Musk accused Twitter of failing to adhere to the principles of free speech and he asked what should be done about that given that the platform functioned as what he called a public town square.
但上个月，马斯克指责推特未能坚持言论自由的原则，他质问道，鉴于该平台的功能是他所说的公共城镇广场，应该做些什么。
Well, he has decided to buy it.
他已经决定买下它了。
The agreement which is worth more than $40 billion is one of the biggest deals ever to put a public company into private ownership.
该协议价值400多亿美元，是有史以来将一家上市公司变为私人所有的最大交易之一。
Musk says he wants to make twitter better than ever by adding new features, making its algorithm clearer to the public and getting rid of spam bots on the platform.
马斯克表示，他希望通过添加新功能，让公众更清楚地了解推特的算法，并消除平台上的垃圾邮件机器人，让推特变得比以往任何时候都更好。
Congressional Republicans called the deal a victory for free speech and said they hoped it would keep technology companies from, quote, censoring users that have a different viewpoint.
国会共和党人称该协议是言论自由的胜利，并表示他们希望该协议能阻止科技公司审查持有不同观点的用户。
Musk is not the first billionaire to buy a major media company.
马斯克并不是第一个收购大型媒体公司的亿万富翁。
In 2013, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, bought "The Washington Post" newspaper.
2013年，亚马逊创始人杰夫·贝佐斯收购了《华盛顿邮报》。
In 2018, Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce, bought "Time Magazine"
2018年，Salesforce创始人马克·贝尼奥夫收购了《时代周刊》。
But there are critics of Musk's purchase of Twitter.
但也有人批评马斯克收购推特。
Brian Todd reports on what they're saying.
布莱恩·托德将对他们的谈话进行了报道。
The world's richest man, buying up one of the world's most powerful social media companies, generating huge buzz tonight.
世界上最富有的人，收购了世界上最强大的社交媒体公司之一，今晚引起了巨大的轰动。
Twitter has agreed to sell itself to Elon Musk, the flamboyant, controversial CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, for about $44 billion.
推特已同意以约440亿美元的价格将自己出售给特斯拉和美国太空探索技术公司的首席执行官埃隆·马斯克。
A deal that could bring enormous change to the popular platform.
这笔交易可能会给这个热门平台带来巨大变化。
What we're talking about here is the confluence, really, of a number of conversations we're having nationally and internationally about, you know, the power of billionaires.
我们在这里谈论的是，实际上，我们在国内和国际上就亿万富翁的权力进行的一系列对话的集合。
For example, the influence of tech platforms on democracies.
例如，科技平台对民主的影响。
With this purchase, Twitter will now led by one of the quirkiest business titans America has ever known.
通过这次收购，推特现在将由美国有史以来最古怪的商业巨头之一领导。
Musk himself has used Twitter and his more than 80 million followers to build his brand but also to troll others.
马斯克本人曾利用推特和他的8000多万粉丝来建立自己的品牌，但也用来对其他人开喷。
You know, it's hard to know when exactly to take him seriously because he is so eccentric.
很难知道什么时候该认真对待他，因为他太古怪了。
So when this idea came up, you know, we know that this will cost him billions of dollars.
当这个想法出现的时候，我们知道这将花费他数十亿美元。
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