2020-10-27 10:59:08
For years, The Epoch Times was a small, low-budget newspaper with an anti-China slant that was handed out free on New York street corners. But in 2016 and 2017, the paper made two changes that transformed it into one of the country’s most powerful digital publishers.
多年以来，《大纪元时报》一直是一份有反华倾向的低预算小报，在纽约的街角免费派发。但在2016和2017年，该报进行了两项变革，使其转型为这个国家最有影响力的电子出版商之一。
The changes also paved the way for the publication, which is affiliated with the secretive and relatively obscure Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong, to become a leading purveyor of right-wing misinformation.
这些变革，也为这份隶属于神秘而相对隐蔽的中国灵修团体法轮功的出版物成为右翼虚假信息主要提供者铺平了道路。
First, it embraced President Trump, treating him as an ally in Falun Gong’s scorched-earth fight against China’s ruling Communist Party, which banned the group two decades ago and has persecuted its members ever since. Its relatively staid coverage of U.S. politics became more partisan, with more articles explicitly supporting Mr. Trump and criticizing his opponents.
首先，它支持特朗普，将其视为法轮功与中国当局共产党焦土之战的盟友，后者在20年前曾取缔该组织，此后一直迫害其成员。该报对美国政治相对平淡的报道变得更加党派化，更多文章开始明确支持特朗普，批评他的对手。
Around the same time, The Epoch Times bet big on another powerful American institution: Facebook. The publication and its affiliates employed a novel strategy that involved creating dozens of Facebook pages, filling them with feel-good videos and viral clickbait, and using them to sell subscriptions and drive traffic back to its partisan news coverage.
与此同时，《大纪元时报》在另一个强大的美国机构身上下了重注：Facebook。这份出版物及其附属公司采用了一项全新的战略，包括创建数十个Facebook页面，发布令人愉悦的视频和诱人的标题党新闻，然后用他们来获取订阅，并将流量带回至其具有党派性质的新闻报道中。
In an April 2017 email to the staff obtained by The New York Times, the paper’s leadership envisioned that the Facebook strategy could help turn The Epoch Times into “the world’s largest and most authoritative media.” It could also introduce millions of people to the teachings of Falun Gong, fulfilling the group’s mission of “saving sentient beings.”
在《纽约时报》获得的一封2017年4月向员工发送的邮件中，该报领导层描绘了Facebook战略将帮助《大纪元时报》成为“全球最大、最权威媒体”的图景。它还将让数百万人得以接触到法轮功，实现该组织“拯救众生”的使命。
Today, The Epoch Times and its affiliates are a force in right-wing media, with tens of millions of social media followers spread across dozens of pages and an online audience that rivals those of The Daily Caller and Breitbart News, and with a similar willingness to feed the online fever swamps of the far right.
今天，《大纪元时报》及其附属机构已成为右翼媒体中的一支生力军，数千万社交媒体关注者散布在数十个页面上，它的在线读者可以和《每日来电》(The Daily Caller)和布莱巴特新闻网(Breitbart News)的受众相媲美，同样愿意在线吸收狂热的极右翼内容。
It also has growing influence in Mr. Trump’s inner circle. The president and his family have shared articles from the paper on social media, and Trump administration officials have sat for interviews with its reporters. In August, a reporter from The Epoch Times asked a question at a White House press briefing.
它在特朗普的内部圈子里也开始影响力日增。总统及其家人在社交媒体上分享了来自该报的文章，特朗普政府官员坐下来接受其记者的采访。8月，一名来自《大纪元时报》的记者还在白宫新闻简报会上得到提问机会。
It is a remarkable success story for Falun Gong, which has long struggled to establish its bona fides against Beijing’s efforts to demonize it as an “evil cult,” partly because its strident accounts of persecution in China can sometimes be difficult to substantiate or veer into exaggeration. In 2006, an Epoch Times reporter disrupted a White House visit by the Chinese president by shouting, “Evil people will die early.”
对法轮功来说，这是一个非凡的成功故事。长期以来，该组织一直难以成为一股真正的势力，以对抗北京将其妖魔化为“邪教”的做法，其部分原因就在于，该组织对中国迫害的尖锐描述有时很难被证实，或变得过于夸张。2006年，一名《大纪元时报》的记者大喊“坏人必早死”，打断了时任中国主席的白宫之行。
Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist and a former chairman of Breitbart, said in an interview in July that The Epoch Times’s fast growth had impressed him.
特朗普的前首席策略师、布莱巴特新闻网前董事史蒂芬·K·班农(Stephen K. Bannon)在7月的一次采访中表示，《大纪元时报》的快速成长给他留下深刻印象。
“They’ll be the top conservative news site in two years,” said Mr. Bannon, who was arrested on fraud charges in August. “They punch way above their weight, they have the readers, and they’re going to be a force to be reckoned with.”
“他们将在两年内成为最顶尖的保守新闻网站，”在8月因欺诈指控被捕的班农说。“他们用远超自己体量的气势出击，他们有读者，他们将成为一股不容忽视的力量。”
But the organization and its affiliates have grown, in part, by relying on sketchy social media tactics, pushing dangerous conspiracy theories and downplaying their connection to Falun Gong, an investigation by The Times has found. The investigation included interviews with more than a dozen former Epoch Times employees, as well as internal documents and tax filings. Many of these people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, or still had family in Falun Gong.
但时报的一项调查发现，该组织及其附属机构的壮大，一定程度上是依靠简略的社交媒体策略，推销危险的阴谋论，并淡化它们与法轮功的联系。这项调查包括对十多名《大纪元时报》前雇员的采访，以及取得的内部文件和税务文件。因为担心报复，或者是因为家人还是法轮功成员，这些人中的许多人都不愿意透露姓名。
Embracing Mr. Trump and Facebook has made The Epoch Times a partisan powerhouse. But it has also created a global-scale misinformation machine that has repeatedly pushed fringe narratives into the mainstream.
因为力挺特朗普，加上在Facebook上表现活跃，使得《大纪元时报》成为一个充满偏见的强大媒体势力。但它也是一个在全球范围内创造不实信息的机器，一再将边缘叙事推入主流。
The publication has been one of the most prominent promoters of “Spygate,” a baseless conspiracy theory involving claims that Obama administration officials illegally spied on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. Publications and shows linked to The Epoch Times have promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory and spread distorted claims about voter fraud and the Black Lives Matter movement. More recently, they have promoted the unfounded theory that the coronavirus — which the publication calls the “CCP Virus,” in an attempt to link it to the Chinese Communist Party — was created as a bioweapon in a Chinese military lab.
这份报纸是“间谍门”最主要的宣扬者之一，这是一个毫无根据的阴谋论，说的是奥巴马政府官员在2016年的总统大选期间对特朗普进行非法监视。与《大纪元时报》有关的出版物和节目大肆宣扬深层政府阴谋论，并散步有关选票造假和“黑人的命也是命”运动的歪曲说法。最近，他们又在宣扬一种毫无根据的理论，说新冠病毒是中国军方实验室造出来的生物武器（《大纪元时报》将这种病毒称之为“中共病毒”，试图将其与中共联系在一起）。
The Epoch Times says it is independent and nonpartisan, and it rejects the suggestion that it is officially affiliated with Falun Gong.
《大纪元时报》表示，它是独立的无党派报纸，并否认有关它与法轮功存在正式隶属关系的说法。
Like Falun Gong itself, the newspaper — which publishes in dozens of countries — is decentralized and operates as a cluster of regional chapters, each organized as a separate nonprofit. It is also extraordinarily secretive. Editors at The Epoch Times turned down multiple requests for interviews, and a reporter’s unannounced visit to the outlet’s Manhattan headquarters this year was met with a threat from a lawyer.
与法轮功本身一样，这份在数十个国家发行的报纸采取分散性结构，下设多个地区分会集合运营，每个分会都是一个独立的非营利性组织。它还极其隐秘。《大纪元时报》的编辑多次拒绝了采访要求，一名记者今年突访该媒体在曼哈顿的总部，结果遭到了一名律师的威胁。
Representatives for Li Hongzhi, the leader of Falun Gong, did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did other residents of Dragon Springs, the compound in upstate New York that serves as Falun Gong’s spiritual headquarters.
法轮功领袖李洪志的代表没有回应记者的置评请求。法轮功的精神总部、位于纽约州北部的龙泉寺的居住者，也没有回应置评请求。
Many employees and Falun Gong practitioners contacted by The Times said they were instructed not to divulge details of the outlet’s inner workings. They said they had been told that speaking negatively about The Epoch Times would be tantamount to disobeying Mr. Li, who is known by his disciples as “Master.”
时报联系的许多员工和法轮功练习者都说，他们接到指示，不能透露该报的内部运作细节。他们说，有人给他们打过招呼，说《大纪元时报》的坏话就是不听李大师的话。
The Epoch Times provided only partial answers to a long list of questions sent to its media office, and declined to answer questions about its finances and editorial strategy. In an email, which was not signed, the outlet accused The Times of “defaming and diminishing a competitor” and displaying “a subtle form of religious intimidation if not bigotry” by linking the publication to Falun Gong.
《大纪元时报》对它的媒体办公室收到的一长串问题只做了部分回答，并拒绝回答有关其财务和编辑策略的问题。在一封没有署名的电子邮件中，该媒体指责时报“诽谤和削弱竞争对手”，并通过将该报与法轮功联系起来，表现出“一种微妙的宗教恐吓甚至是偏狭”。
“The Epoch Times will not be intimidated and will not be silenced,” the outlet added, “and based on the number of falsehoods and inaccuracies included in the New York Times questions we will consider all legal options in response.”
“《大纪元时报》不会被吓到，也不会保持沉默，”该报补充道。“基于《纽约时报》提问中的谎言和不实之处的数量，我们将考虑所有的法律选择作为回应。”
Clarifying the Truth
讲真相
Falun Gong, which Mr. Li introduced in China in 1992, revolves around a series of five meditation exercises and a process of moral self-improvement that is meant to lead to spiritual enlightenment. Today, the group is known for the demonstrations it holds around the world to “clarify the truth” about the Chinese Communist Party, which it accuses of torturing Falun Gong practitioners and harvesting the organs of those executed. (Tens of thousands across China were sent to labor camps in the early years of the crackdown, and the group’s presence there is now much diminished.)
李洪志从1992年起在中国推广的法轮功，围绕着五套冥想修炼和一个道德自我完善的过程，目的是通向精神的升华。如今，这一组织以在世界各地举行的关于中共的“讲真相”示威活动闻名，指控其折磨法轮功学员并摘取被处决者的器官。（在镇压初期，全国数以万计的学员被送至劳改所，而现在关押这些地方的学员已经大大减少。）
More recently, Falun Gong has come under scrutiny for what some former practitioners have characterized as an extreme belief system that forbids interracial marriage, condemns homosexuality and discourages the use of modern medicine, all allegations the group denies.
近来，因为一些前学员将其描述为一种极端信仰体系，禁止异族通婚、谴责同性恋、不鼓励使用现代医学，法轮功受到了密切关注，而该组织对这些指控都予以否认。
When The Epoch Times got its start in 2000, the goal was to counter Chinese propaganda and cover Falun Gong’s persecution by the Chinese government. It began as a Chinese-language newspaper run out of the Georgia basement of John Tang, a graduate student and Falun Gong practitioner.
《大纪元时报》于2000年创立时，其目的是反击中国的政治宣传，报道中国政府对法轮功的迫害。它起初是一家中文报纸，由法轮功学员、研究生唐忠(John Tang)在乔治亚州的一间地下室运营。
By 2004, The Epoch Times had expanded into English. One of the paper’s early hires was Genevieve Belmaker, then a 27-year-old Falun Gong practitioner with little journalism experience. Ms. Belmaker, now 43, described the early Epoch Times as a cross between a scrappy media start-up and a zealous church bulletin, with a staff composed mostly of unpaid volunteers drawn from the local Falun Gong chapters.
到2004年，《大纪元时报》已经扩展出英文版。吉纳维芙·贝尔梅克(Genevieve Belmaker)是该报的早期员工之一，当时这位27岁的法轮功学员几乎没有新闻工作经验。如今，43岁的贝尔梅克将《大纪元时报》描述为一个介于散乱的初创媒体和狂热的教会期刊之间的混合体，员工大多是来自当地法轮功分会的无偿志愿者。
“The mission-driven part of it was, let’s have a media outlet that not only tells the truth about Falun Gong but about everything,” Ms. Belmaker said.
“部分使命驱动是，让我们有一个媒体渠道，不仅讲述法轮功的真相，还要讲述所有事的真相，”贝尔梅克说。
Mr. Li, Falun Gong’s founder, also saw it that way. In speeches, he referred to The Epoch Times and other Falun Gong-linked outlets — including the New Tang Dynasty TV station, or NTD — as “our media,” and said they could help publicize Falun Gong’s story and values around the world.
法轮功创始人李洪志也是这样想的。在演讲中，他将《大纪元时报》和其他法轮功相关的媒体——包括新唐人电视台(NTD)——称为“我们的媒体”，并表示它们可以在世界范围内帮助宣传法轮功故事和价值观。
Two former employees recalled that the paper’s top editors had traveled to Dragon Springs to meet with Mr. Li. One employee who attended a meeting said Mr. Li had weighed in on editorial and strategic decisions, acting as a kind of shadow publisher. The Epoch Times denied these accounts, saying in a statement, “There has been no such meeting.”
据两名前员工回忆，该报的高级编辑曾前往龙泉寺与李洪志见面。一名参与过会面的员工称，李洪志会在编辑和战略决策上发表意见，扮演着类似影子出版人的角色。《大纪元时报》在声明中否认了这些说法，称“从未有过这样的会面”。
The line between The Epoch Times and Falun Gong is blurry at times. Two former Epoch Times reporters said they had been asked to write flattering profiles of foreign performers being recruited into Shen Yun, the heavily advertised dance performance series that Falun Gong backs, because it would strengthen those performers’ visa applications. Another former Epoch Times reporter recalled being assigned to write critical articles about politicians including John Liu, a Taiwanese-American former New York City councilman whom the group viewed as soft on China and hostile to Falun Gong.
《大纪元时报》和法轮功之间的界限有时是模糊的。两名《大纪元时报》前记者称，他们被要求为神韵——由法轮功赞助的被大肆宣传的舞蹈表演系列——招募的外国演员撰写溢美之词，因为这有利于那些演员的签证申请。另一位《大纪元时报》前记者回忆称，自己被指派撰写批评政客的文章，包括前纽约市台裔议员刘醇逸(John Liu)，他被该组织视为对中国的软弱派和法轮功的敌对派。
These articles helped Falun Gong advance its goals, but they lured few subscribers.
这些文章都帮助法轮功推进了自己的目标，但吸引的订阅者却很少。
Matthew K. Tullar, a former sales director for The Epoch Times’s Orange County edition in New York, wrote on his LinkedIn page that his team initially “printed 800 papers each week, had no subscribers, and utilized a ‘throw it in their driveway for free’ marketing strategy.” Mr. Tullar did not respond to requests for comment.
曾为《大纪元时报》奥兰治县版纽约销售总监的马修·K·塔拉(Matthew K. Tullar)在自己的领英页面上写道，他的团队最初“每周印800份报纸，没有订阅用户，就采取了‘把报纸扔到车道上免费赠送’的营销策略”。塔拉没有回应置评请求。
Ms. Belmaker, who left the paper in 2017, described it as a bare-bones operation that was always searching for new moneymaking ventures.
2017年离开该报的贝尔梅克将其描述为一家一直在寻找新的赚钱机会的简陋公司。
“It was very short-term thinking,” she said. “We weren’t looking more than three weeks down the road.”
“这只是一个很短期的打算，”她说。“我们不会把眼光放到未来三周之后。”
A Trump Pivot
转向特朗普
By 2014, The Epoch Times was edging closer to Mr. Li’s vision of a respectable news outlet. Subscriptions were growing, the paper’s reporting was winning journalism awards, and its finances were stabilizing.
到2014年时，《大纪元时报》距离李洪志设想的受人尊敬的新闻媒体越来越近了。订阅量在增长，报道在赢得新闻奖，其财务也在走向稳定。
“There was all this optimism that things were going to level up,” Ms. Belmaker said.
“大家都很乐观，认为报纸会达到更高水平，”贝尔梅克说。
But at a staff meeting in 2015, leadership announced that the publication was in trouble again, Ms. Belmaker recalled. Facebook had changed its algorithm for determining which articles appeared in users’ newsfeeds, and The Epoch Times’s traffic and ad revenue were suffering.
但据贝尔梅克回忆，在2015年的一次员工会议上，领导层宣布报纸再度陷入困境。Facebook已改变了决定哪些文章出现在用户新闻推送中的算法，《大纪元时报》的访问流量和广告收入受到了影响。
In response, the publication assigned reporters to churn out as many as five posts a day in a search for viral hits, often lowbrow fare with titles like “Grizzly Bear Does Belly Flop Into a Swimming Pool.”
作为回应，《大纪元时报》让记者每天发多达五篇帖子，以寻找能疯传的话题，而且通常用一些低俗的标题，比如Grizzly Bear Does Belly Flop Into a Swimming Pool（灰熊肚子先落水跳进游泳池）。
“It was a competition for traffic,” Ms. Belmaker said.
“那是一场争夺眼球的竞争，”贝尔梅克说。
As the 2016 election neared, reporters noticed that the paper’s political coverage took on a more partisan tone.
随着2016年大选的临近，记者们注意到该报的政治报道开始使用更加党派化的口吻。
Steve Klett, who covered the 2016 campaign for the paper, said his editors had encouraged favorable coverage about Mr. Trump after he won the Republican nomination.
为《大纪元时报》做过2016年竞选活动报道的史蒂夫·克雷特(Steve Klett)说，特朗普赢得共和党提名后，他的编辑们曾鼓励他对特朗普做正面报道。
“They seemed to have this almost messianic way of viewing Trump as the anti-Communist leader who would bring about the end of the Chinese Communist Party,” Mr. Klett said.
“他们似乎用一种近乎救世主的眼光看待特朗普，把他视为将搞垮中国共产党的反共领导人，”克雷特说。
After Mr. Trump’s victory, The Epoch Times hired Brendan Steinhauser, a well-connected Tea Party strategist, to help make inroads with conservatives. Mr. Steinhauser said the organization’s goal, beyond raising its profile in Washington, had been to make Falun Gong’s persecution a Trump administration priority.
特朗普获胜后，《大纪元时报》聘请了人脉广泛的茶党(Tea Party)策略师布兰登·斯坦豪泽(Brendan Steinhauser)帮助与保守派建立联系。斯坦豪泽说，该组织的目标除了提高自己在华盛顿的知名度之外，曾经还包括法轮功受迫害事宜成为特朗普政府的一个首要任务。
“They wanted more people in Washington to be aware of how the Chinese Communist Party operates, and what it has done to spiritual and ethnic minorities,” Mr. Steinhauser said.
“他们希望华盛顿有更多的人了解中国共产党如何运作，以及中共对宗教和少数民族干了什么，”斯坦豪泽说。
All In on Facebook
全力投入Facebook
Behind the scenes, The Epoch Times was also developing a secret weapon: a Facebook growth strategy that would ultimately help take its message to millions.
《大纪元时报》还在幕后研发了一种秘密武器：最终能帮助将其信息传递给数百万人的Facebook增长战略。
According to emails reviewed by The Times, the Facebook plan was developed by Trung Vu, the former head of The Epoch Times’s Vietnamese edition, known as Dai Ky Nguyen, or DKN.
据时报看到的电子邮件，Facebook战略是由《大纪元时报》越南语版(DKN)的前负责人武忠（Trung Vu，音）制定的。
In Vietnam, Mr. Trung’s strategy involved filling a network of Facebook pages with viral videos and pro-Trump propaganda, some of it lifted word for word from other sites, and using automated software, or bots, to generate fake likes and shares, a former DKN employee said. Employees used fake accounts to run the pages, a practice that violated Facebook’s rules but that Mr. Trung said was necessary to protect employees from Chinese surveillance, the former employee said.
DKN的一名前雇员说，在越南，武忠的战略包括在Facebook页面网上放满疯传的视频和支持特朗普的宣传材料，其中一些是从其他网站逐字逐句拷贝来的，然后用自动程序给这些页面制造虚假的点赞和转发量。这名前雇员说，员工们用虚假账户来运行这些页面，这种做法违反了Facebook的规定，但武忠说，为了保护员工免受中国的监控，有必要采取这种做法。
Mr. Trung did not respond to requests for comment.
武忠没有回复记者的置评请求。
According to the 2017 email sent to Epoch Times workers in America, the Vietnamese experiment was a “remarkable success” that made DKN one of the largest publishers in Vietnam.
据2017年发给《大纪元时报》在美国员工的电子邮件，越南的实验取得了“巨大成功”，让DKN成了越南最大的出版商之一。
The outlet, the email claimed, was “having a profound impact on saving sentient beings in that country.”
该邮件宣称，DKN“对拯救那个国家的有情众生有深远的影响”。
The Vietnamese team was asked to help Epoch Media Group — the umbrella organization for Falun Gong’s biggest U.S. media properties — set up its own Facebook empire, according to that email. That year, dozens of new Facebook pages appeared, all linked to The Epoch Times and its affiliates. Some were explicitly partisan, others positioned themselves as sources of real and unbiased news, and a few, like a humor page called “Funniest Family Moments,” were disconnected from news entirely.
据该邮件，越南语团队被要求帮助大纪元(Epoch Media Group)在Facebook上建立自己的帝国。大纪元是负责法轮功在美国最大媒体资产的综合机构。那年，Facebook上出现了几十个新页面，全都有到《大纪元时报》及其附属出版物的链接。有些带有明显的党派色彩，有些把自己定位为真实无偏见新闻的来源，还有几个完全与新闻无关，比如一个名为“最有趣的家庭时刻”(Funniest Family Moments)的幽默页面。
Perhaps the most audacious experiment was a new right-wing politics site called America Daily.
也许最大胆的实验是一个名为American Daily（《美国日报》）的右翼政治新网站。
Today, the site, which has more than a million Facebook followers, peddles far-right misinformation. It has posted anti-vaccine screeds, an article falsely claiming that Bill Gates and other elites are “directing” the Covid-19 pandemic and allegations about a “Jewish mob” that controls the world.
今天，这个拥有100多万Facebook粉丝的网站兜售极右的假消息。这个网站发过反疫苗的长篇大论，还发过一篇错误地声称比尔·盖茨和其他精英正在“指挥”新冠病毒疫情的文章，以及所谓“犹太暴徒”控制世界的无证据说法。
Emails obtained by The Times show that John Nania, a longtime Epoch Times editor, was involved in starting America Daily, along with executives from Sound of Hope, a Falun Gong-affiliated radio network. Records on Facebook show that the page is operated by the Sound of Hope Network, and a pinned post on its Facebook page contains a promotional video for Falun Gong.
时报获得的电子邮件显示，曾长期担任《大纪元时报》主编的约翰·纳尼亚(John Nania)与法轮功下属的广播网络“希望之声”(Sound of Hope)的高管们一起参与了《美国日报》的创办。Facebook上的记录显示，该页面由“希望之声”网络运营，其Facebook页面上的一篇永久置顶的帖子里是法轮功的宣传视频。
In a statement, The Epoch Times said it had “no business relationship” with America Daily.
《大纪元时报》在一份声明中说，它与《美国日报》“没有业务关系”。
Many of the Facebook pages operated by The Epoch Times and its affiliates followed a similar trajectory. They began by posting viral videos and uplifting news articles aggregated from other sites. They grew quickly, sometimes adding hundreds of thousands of followers a week. Then, they were used to steer people to buy Epoch Times subscriptions and promote more partisan content.
《大纪元时报》及其附属机构运营的许多Facebook页面都沿袭类似的轨迹。它们以转发从其他网站收集来的疯传视频和鼓舞人心的新闻开始。然后迅速发展，有时一周增添数十万名关注者。随后，它们被用来引导人们付钱订阅《大纪元时报》，推销更具党派色彩的内容。
Several of the pages gained significant followings “seemingly overnight,” said Renee DiResta, a disinformation researcher with the Stanford Internet Observatory. Many posts were shared thousands of times but received almost no comments — a ratio, Ms. DiResta said, that is typical of pages that have been boosted by “click farms,” firms that generate fake traffic by paying people to click on certain links over and over again.
斯坦福互联网观察站(Stanford Internet Observatory)研究虚假信息的研究员雷妮·迪瑞斯塔(Renee DiResta)说，有些页面“似乎一夜之间”就获得了大量关注。许多帖子被分享数千次，但几乎没有收到任何评论——迪瑞斯塔说，这种比例对由“点击农场”推动的页面来说很典型，“点击农场”指的是通过付钱让人们一次又一次点击某些链接来产生虚假流量的公司。
The Epoch Times denies using click farms or other illicit tactics to expand its pages. “The Epoch Times’s social media strategies were different from DKN, and used Facebook’s own promotional tools to gain an increased organic following,” the outlet said, adding that The Epoch Times cut ties with Mr. Trung in 2018.
《大纪元时报》否认使用“点击农场”或其他非法手段来扩大其页面的影响。“《大纪元时报》的社交媒体策略与DKN不同，而是利用Facebook自身的推广工具来有机地吸引更多的追随者，”《大纪元时报》说道。它又称，该报已在2018年切断了与武忠的关系。
But last year, The Epoch Times was barred from advertising on Facebook— where it had spent more than $1.5 million over seven months — after the social network announced that the outlet’s pages had evaded its transparency requirements by disguising its ad purchases.
但去年，《大纪元时报》被禁止在Facebook上投放广告，该报在之前的七个月里在Facebook的广告投放上已经花了150多万美元，该社交媒体平台宣布的原因是，《大纪元时报》页面通过隐瞒其广告购买来规避Facebook的透明度要求。
This year, Facebook took down more than 500 pages and accounts linked to Truth Media, a network of anti-China pages that had been using fake accounts to amplify their messages. The Epoch Times denied any involvement, but Facebook’s investigators said Truth Media “showed some links to on-platform activity by Epoch Media Group and NTD.”
今年，Facebook关闭了500多个链接到“真相媒体”(Truth Media)的页面和账户。“真相媒体”是一个反华网页的网络，一直在用虚假账户来放大自己的信息。《大纪元时报》否认参与其中，但Facebook的调查人员称，真相媒体“展示了一些连到大纪元和新唐人平台上的活动的链接”。
“We’ve taken enforcement actions against Epoch Media and related groups several times,” said a Facebook spokeswoman, who added that the social network would punish the outlet if it violated more rules in the future.
Facebook的一位发言人说，“我们已经多次对大纪元和有关组织采取了执行措施。”她还说，如果《大纪元时报》在未来有违反更多规则的行为的话，Facebook将对其进行惩罚。
Since being barred from advertising on Facebook, The Epoch Times has moved much of its operation to YouTube, where it has spent more than $1.8 million on ads since May 2018, according to Google’s public database of political advertising.
自从被禁止在Facebook上投放广告以来，《大纪元时报》已将其大部分业务转到了YouTube上。据谷歌的政治广告公开数据库显示，自2018年5月以来，《大纪元时报》在YouTube上的广告花销为180多万美元。
Where the paper’s money comes from is something of a mystery. Former employees said they had been told that The Epoch Times was financed by a combination of subscriptions, ads and donations from wealthy Falun Gong practitioners. In 2018, the most recent year for which the organization’s tax returns are publicly available, The Epoch Times Association received several sizable donations, but none big enough to pay for a multimillion-dollar ad blitz.
报纸的钱是从哪里来的一直是个谜。前员工说，他们被告知，《大纪元时报》的资金来源包括订阅、广告收入，以及富裕的法轮功练习者的捐款。可以公开得到的最近一年的大纪元时报协会纳税申报单是2018年的，协会那年收到了几笔数额可观的捐款，但没有一笔大到足以支付数百万美元广告攻势的程度。
Mr. Bannon is among those who have noticed The Epoch Times’s deep pockets. Last year, he produced a documentary about China with NTD. When he talked with the outlet about other projects, he said, money never seemed to be an issue.
班农是注意到《大纪元时报》资金雄厚的人之一。去年，他和新唐人制作了一部关于中国的纪录片。他说，他与该媒体讨论其他项目时，钱似乎从来都不是讨论的内容。
“I’d give them a number,” Mr. Bannon said. “And they’d come back and say, ‘We’re good for that number.’”
“我会报给他们一个数目，”班农说。“他们会返回来说，‘这个数目对我们来说没问题。’”
‘The Moral Objective Is Gone’
“道德目的已经没有了”
The Epoch Times’s pro-Trump turn has upset some former employees, like Ms. Belmaker.
《大纪元时报》转向支持特朗普让贝尔梅克等一些前雇员不高兴。
Ms. Belmaker, now a freelance writer and editor, still believes in many of Falun Gong’s teachings, she said. But she has grown disenchanted with The Epoch Times, which she sees as running contrary to Falun Gong’s core principles of truth, compassion and tolerance.
贝尔梅克现在是一名自由撰稿人和编辑，她说，她仍然相信法轮功的许多教义。但她对《大纪元时报》越来越感到失望，她觉得该报现在的做法与法轮功诚实、善良、宽容的核心原则背道而驰。
“The moral objective is gone,” she said. “They’re on the wrong side of history, and I don’t think they care.”
“道德目的已经没有了，”她说。“他们站在了历史错误的一边，我觉得他们并不在乎。”
Recently, The Epoch Times has shifted its focus to the coronavirus. It pounced on China’s missteps in the early days of the pandemic, and its reporters wrote about misreported virus statistics and Chinese influence in the World Health Organization.
最近，《大纪元时报》把焦点转向了新冠病毒。该报抓住了中国在疫情初期的失误，其记者对漏报谎报病毒统计数据以及中国在世界卫生组织的影响力做了报道。
Some of these articles were true. But others pushed exaggerated or false claims, like the unproven theory that the virus was engineered in a lab as part of a Chinese biological warfare strategy.
这些报道中有些东西是真的。其他的则是推销夸大或虚假的说法，比如一个未经证实的理论，即病毒是在实验室中制造出来的，是中国生物战战略的一部分。
Some of the claims were repeated in a documentary that both NTD and The Epoch Times posted on YouTube, where it has been viewed more than five million times. The documentary features the discredited virologist Judy Mikovits, who also starred in the viral “Plandemic” video, which Facebook, YouTube and other social platforms pulled this year for spreading false claims.
新唐人和《大纪元时报》在YouTube上发布的一部纪录片中重复了这些说法，该纪录片在YouTube上的观看次数已超过500万次。纪录片中的主要人物是信誉扫地的病毒学家朱迪·米柯维茨(Judy Mikovits)，她也是疯传的视频“Plandemic”中的主要人物。Facebook、YouTube和其他社交平台已因该视频散布虚假宣称而将其撤下。
The Epoch Times said, “In our documentary we offered a range of evidence and viewpoints without drawing any conclusions.”
《大纪元时报》说，“我们在纪录片里提供了各种各样的证据和观点，没有给出任何结论。”
Ms. Belmaker, who still keeps a photo of Master Li on a shelf in her house, said she recoiled whenever an ad for The Epoch Times popped up on YouTube promoting some new partisan talking point.
贝尔梅克仍在家里的书架上摆着一张李大师的照片，她说，每次在YouTube上看到《大纪元时报》推出带有党派色彩新话题的广告时，都让她感到厌恶。
One recent video, “Digging Beneath Narratives,” is a two-minute infomercial about China’s mishandling of the coronavirus. The ad’s host says The Epoch Times has an “underground network of sources” in China providing information about the government’s response to the virus.
最近的一个名为“挖掘叙事的背后”(Digging below Narratives)的视频，是关于中国处理新冠病毒不当的两分钟电视广告。广告的主持人说，《大纪元时报》在中国有一个为该报提供有关政府应对病毒措施信息的“地下信源网”。
It’s a plausible claim, but the video’s host makes no mention of The Epoch Times’s ties to Falun Gong, or its two-decade-long campaign against Chinese communism, saying only that the paper is “giving you an accurate picture of what’s happening in this world.”
这个说法听起来有点道理，但视频的主持人并没有提《大纪元时报》与法轮功的关系，也没有提其与中国共产党进行的长达20年的斗争，只是说该报“给人们提供一个关于世界上正在发生的事情的准确画面”。
“We tell it like it is,” he says.
“我们实事求是地报道，”他说。
Ben Smith对本文有报道贡献。Jack Begg对本文有研究贡献。
Kevin Roose是Business Day的专栏作者、《纽约时报杂志》资深作者。他的专栏 “The Shift”检视了科技、商业和文化之间的交汇。欢迎在Twitter、LinkedIn、Facebook或 Instagram上关注他。
翻译：纽约时报中文网
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