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Text 4 The revelations we publish about how Facebook's data was used by Cambridge Analytica to s...

Text 4
The revelations we publish about how Facebook's data was used by Cambridge Analytica to subvert the openness of democracy are only the latest examples of a global phenomenon. YouTube can not only profit from disturbing content but in unintended ways rewards its creation. The algorithms that guide viewers to new choices aim always to intensify the experience, and to keep the viewer excited. Recent research found that the nearly 9,000 YouTube videos explaining away American school shootings as the results of conspiracies using actors to play the part of victims had been watched, in total, more than 4bn times. Four billion page views is an awful lot of potential advertising revenue; it is also, in an embarrassingly literal sense, traffic in human misery and exploitation.
None of these problems is new, and all of them will grow worse and more pressing in the coming years, as the technology advances. Yet the real difficulty is not the slickness of the technology but the willingness of the audience to be deceived and its desire to have its prejudices gratified. Many of the most destructive videos on YouTube consist of one man roaring into a camera without any visual aids at all. Twitter uses no fancy technology yet lies spread across that network six times as fast as true stories.
Although Twitter and YouTube pose undoubted difficulties for democracies, it is Facebook that has borne the brunt of recent criticism, in part because its global ambitions have led it to expand into countries where it is essentially the only gateway to the wider internet, The company's ambitions to become the carrier of all content (and thus able to sell advertising against everything online) have led it inexorably into the position of being the universal publisher.
The difficulties of this position cannot be resolved by the facile idea of the "community values" to which Facebook appeals - and, anyway, that only begs the question: "Which community?" Mark Zuckerberg talks about a "global community" but such a thing does not exist and may never do so. Communities have different values and different interests, which sometimes appear existentially opposed. Almost all will define themselves, at least in part, against other communities. The task of reconciling the resulting conflicts is political, cultural and even religious; it is not technological at all. For a private American advertising company to set itself up as the arbiter of all the world's political and cultural conflicts is an entirely vain ambition.
Into the vacuum left by Facebook's waffle, nation states are stepping. Many are keen to use surveillance capitalism for direct political ends. They must be resisted. The standards by which the internet is controlled need to be open and subject to the workings of impartial judiciaries. But the task cannot and will not be left to the advertising companies that at present control most of the content - and whose own judgments are themselves almost wholly opaque and arbitrary.
39. The word "facile(Line l, Para. 4)" is closest in meaning to .
  • A. confusing
  • B. oversimplified
  • C. persistent
  • D. radical

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1 单选题 0分
Text 1
They are falling like dominoes. Executives caught behaving badly might once have been
slapped on the wrist. Today they are shown the door. On July 19th Paramount Television fired its president, Amy Powell, over reports of insensitive comments about race. This is only the latest bigwig to go in a line of departures linked to "personal misconduct". "Boards are now holding executives to higher standards, looking not just at how they treat people but also how they talk to and about them," says Pam Jeffords of Mercer, a consultancy.
The thread connecting these incidents is that all are about perceptions of executive integrity, and by extension, trust. Since trust violations are particularly hard for firms to overcome, often more so than incompetence, firms may believe that firing an errant executive can be the safest, most pragmatic course of action.
Executives were never alt angels. What has changed is that boards are now far less willing to overlook bad behaviour for the sake of superior performance. A 2017 report from PwC, a professional-services firm, found that the share of chief-executive dismissals that were due to ethical lapses increased between 2007-11 and 2012-2016, not because bosses were behaving worse but because they were held more accountable.
Boards seem to be acting thus for two reasons. First, to protect employees and create a safe and inclusive work environment. Second, to protect their brands' reputations. A 2016 study from researchers at Stanford showed that the fallout from chief executives behaving badly, but not unlawfully, was large and lasting. On average each of the 38 incidents studied garnered 250 news stories, with media attention lasting 4. 9 years. Shares usually suffered, though not always. And in a third of cases firms faced further damage, including loss of major clients and federal investigations.
Should an executive's words be judged as harshly as their actions? From the perspective of protecting the brand, as well as discouraging a toxic work environment, they probably should. The power of social media to turn a whispered comment into a Twitterstorm, and the fact that everyone now has a mobile recording device, demands a decisive response.
But boards and the media also risk rushing to judgment and painting the wicked with too broad a brush. An insensitive remark made long ago or as a one-off is not the same as one made as the face of the firm or as part of a consistent pattern. Disney's firing of James Gunn, a director, last week over tweets from a decade ago, before he was hired and for which he has apologised, seems to be one instance in which such distinctions have been papered over. And plenty of companies benefit from environments where people can speak openly and brainstorm out loud.
Once the fallen dominos have been counted, some firms may turn out to have been too gung-ho in responding to the "Weinstein effect". Many, perhaps most, exits will be justified. But all?
21. The phrase "slapped on the wrist"(Line 2, Para. 1) is closest in meaning to
  • A. given an easy penalty
  • B. forced to resign
  • C. despised by the public
  • D. arrested by the police
2 单选题 0分
Text 1
They are falling like dominoes. Executives caught behaving badly might once have been
slapped on the wrist. Today they are shown the door. On July 19th Paramount Television fired its president, Amy Powell, over reports of insensitive comments about race. This is only the latest bigwig to go in a line of departures linked to "personal misconduct". "Boards are now holding executives to higher standards, looking not just at how they treat people but also how they talk to and about them," says Pam Jeffords of Mercer, a consultancy.
The thread connecting these incidents is that all are about perceptions of executive integrity, and by extension, trust. Since trust violations are particularly hard for firms to overcome, often more so than incompetence, firms may believe that firing an errant executive can be the safest, most pragmatic course of action.
Executives were never alt angels. What has changed is that boards are now far less willing to overlook bad behaviour for the sake of superior performance. A 2017 report from PwC, a professional-services firm, found that the share of chief-executive dismissals that were due to ethical lapses increased between 2007-11 and 2012-2016, not because bosses were behaving worse but because they were held more accountable.
Boards seem to be acting thus for two reasons. First, to protect employees and create a safe and inclusive work environment. Second, to protect their brands' reputations. A 2016 study from researchers at Stanford showed that the fallout from chief executives behaving badly, but not unlawfully, was large and lasting. On average each of the 38 incidents studied garnered 250 news stories, with media attention lasting 4. 9 years. Shares usually suffered, though not always. And in a third of cases firms faced further damage, including loss of major clients and federal investigations.
Should an executive's words be judged as harshly as their actions? From the perspective of protecting the brand, as well as discouraging a toxic work environment, they probably should. The power of social media to turn a whispered comment into a Twitterstorm, and the fact that everyone now has a mobile recording device, demands a decisive response.
But boards and the media also risk rushing to judgment and painting the wicked with too broad a brush. An insensitive remark made long ago or as a one-off is not the same as one made as the face of the firm or as part of a consistent pattern. Disney's firing of James Gunn, a director, last week over tweets from a decade ago, before he was hired and for which he has apologised, seems to be one instance in which such distinctions have been papered over. And plenty of companies benefit from environments where people can speak openly and brainstorm out loud.
Once the fallen dominos have been counted, some firms may turn out to have been too gung-ho in responding to the "Weinstein effect". Many, perhaps most, exits will be justified. But all?
22. Boards today value most executives
  • A. communication skills
  • B. professional competence
  • C. moral rntegrity
  • D. loyalty to the company
3 单选题 0分
Text 1
They are falling like dominoes. Executives caught behaving badly might once have been
slapped on the wrist. Today they are shown the door. On July 19th Paramount Television fired its president, Amy Powell, over reports of insensitive comments about race. This is only the latest bigwig to go in a line of departures linked to "personal misconduct". "Boards are now holding executives to higher standards, looking not just at how they treat people but also how they talk to and about them," says Pam Jeffords of Mercer, a consultancy.
The thread connecting these incidents is that all are about perceptions of executive integrity, and by extension, trust. Since trust violations are particularly hard for firms to overcome, often more so than incompetence, firms may believe that firing an errant executive can be the safest, most pragmatic course of action.
Executives were never alt angels. What has changed is that boards are now far less willing to overlook bad behaviour for the sake of superior performance. A 2017 report from PwC, a professional-services firm, found that the share of chief-executive dismissals that were due to ethical lapses increased between 2007-11 and 2012-2016, not because bosses were behaving worse but because they were held more accountable.
Boards seem to be acting thus for two reasons. First, to protect employees and create a safe and inclusive work environment. Second, to protect their brands' reputations. A 2016 study from researchers at Stanford showed that the fallout from chief executives behaving badly, but not unlawfully, was large and lasting. On average each of the 38 incidents studied garnered 250 news stories, with media attention lasting 4. 9 years. Shares usually suffered, though not always. And in a third of cases firms faced further damage, including loss of major clients and federal investigations.
Should an executive's words be judged as harshly as their actions? From the perspective of protecting the brand, as well as discouraging a toxic work environment, they probably should. The power of social media to turn a whispered comment into a Twitterstorm, and the fact that everyone now has a mobile recording device, demands a decisive response.
But boards and the media also risk rushing to judgment and painting the wicked with too broad a brush. An insensitive remark made long ago or as a one-off is not the same as one made as the face of the firm or as part of a consistent pattern. Disney's firing of James Gunn, a director, last week over tweets from a decade ago, before he was hired and for which he has apologised, seems to be one instance in which such distinctions have been papered over. And plenty of companies benefit from environments where people can speak openly and brainstorm out loud.
Once the fallen dominos have been counted, some firms may turn out to have been too gung-ho in responding to the "Weinstein effect". Many, perhaps most, exits will be justified. But all?
23. The report from PwC reveals
  • A. decreased tolerance to incompetent executives
  • B. increased immoral behaviors among executives
  • C. improvement in executives' job performance
  • D. increased requirements on executives' accountability
4 单选题 0分
Text 1
They are falling like dominoes. Executives caught behaving badly might once have been
slapped on the wrist. Today they are shown the door. On July 19th Paramount Television fired its president, Amy Powell, over reports of insensitive comments about race. This is only the latest bigwig to go in a line of departures linked to "personal misconduct". "Boards are now holding executives to higher standards, looking not just at how they treat people but also how they talk to and about them," says Pam Jeffords of Mercer, a consultancy.
The thread connecting these incidents is that all are about perceptions of executive integrity, and by extension, trust. Since trust violations are particularly hard for firms to overcome, often more so than incompetence, firms may believe that firing an errant executive can be the safest, most pragmatic course of action.
Executives were never alt angels. What has changed is that boards are now far less willing to overlook bad behaviour for the sake of superior performance. A 2017 report from PwC, a professional-services firm, found that the share of chief-executive dismissals that were due to ethical lapses increased between 2007-11 and 2012-2016, not because bosses were behaving worse but because they were held more accountable.
Boards seem to be acting thus for two reasons. First, to protect employees and create a safe and inclusive work environment. Second, to protect their brands' reputations. A 2016 study from researchers at Stanford showed that the fallout from chief executives behaving badly, but not unlawfully, was large and lasting. On average each of the 38 incidents studied garnered 250 news stories, with media attention lasting 4. 9 years. Shares usually suffered, though not always. And in a third of cases firms faced further damage, including loss of major clients and federal investigations.
Should an executive's words be judged as harshly as their actions? From the perspective of protecting the brand, as well as discouraging a toxic work environment, they probably should. The power of social media to turn a whispered comment into a Twitterstorm, and the fact that everyone now has a mobile recording device, demands a decisive response.
But boards and the media also risk rushing to judgment and painting the wicked with too broad a brush. An insensitive remark made long ago or as a one-off is not the same as one made as the face of the firm or as part of a consistent pattern. Disney's firing of James Gunn, a director, last week over tweets from a decade ago, before he was hired and for which he has apologised, seems to be one instance in which such distinctions have been papered over. And plenty of companies benefit from environments where people can speak openly and brainstorm out loud.
Once the fallen dominos have been counted, some firms may turn out to have been too gung-ho in responding to the "Weinstein effect". Many, perhaps most, exits will be justified. But all?
24. We can infer from Paragraphs 4 and 5 that
  • A. many executives behaved badly because of their eagerness to protect brand reputation
  • B. only a small percentage of the stories about executives have been proved true
  • C. a firm may suffer heavy losses due to an insensitive remark from its executives
  • D. social media is encouraging misconducts among chief executives with its great power