原文标题：Elon Musk v Mark ZuckerbergSocial-media smackdownWith Threads, Meta hopes to capitalise on Twitter’s travails埃隆·马斯克 v 马克·扎克伯格社交媒体大比拼Twitter陷入困境，Meta趁虚而入，发布竞品ThreadsPunch-up in the public square公共广场上的打斗

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IN ONE CORNER is Mark Zuckerberg: 39 years old, five foot seven inches and, if his selfies are to be believed, a wizard at jiu-jitsu.

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角落里有一个人，他是马克·扎克伯格：39 岁，身高 5 英尺 7 英寸，如果他的自拍是真的话，他是一个柔术高手。

In the other corner stands Elon Musk: 13 years older, six inches taller and considerably heavier, with a special move known as the walrus(“I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing”).

另一个角落里是埃隆·马斯克：比对手年长13 岁，身高 6 英寸，体重也重得多，他有一招特别的动作叫海象（“我只是躺在对手身上，什么也不做”）。

The two billionaires have agreed to a cage fight, with Mr Musk saying on June 29th that it might take place at the Roman Colosseum.这两位亿万富翁已同意进行一场笼式搏斗，马斯克先生在6月29日表示可能会在罗马大竞技场举行。

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On July 5th Meta, Mr Zuckerberg’s firm, added a new app to its social-media empire. Threads, a text-based network, looks a lot like Twitter, the app Mr Musk bought last October for $44bn. An almightysocial-media smackdown is about to 月 5 日，扎克伯格在 Meta的社交媒体帝国中添加了一款新的应用程序。Threads 是一个基于文本的社交平台，功能跟推特很像。马斯克去年 10月斥资440亿美元收购了推特。一场声势浩大的社交媒体大比拼即将开始。

[Paragraph 3]Mr Musk’s tenure at Twitter has been bruising for many parties. 马斯克在管理推特期间，对许多方都造成了伤害。About 80% of the nearly 8,000 employees he inherited have been laid off, to cut costs. Amid a glitchy service, users have started to drift away, believes eMarketer, a research firm (see chart). 他接手时约有8000名员工，为了削减成本，80%左右的员工被解雇。研究公司 eMarketer 认为，由于服务频出故障，用户已经开始流失（见图表）。The introduction on July 1st of a paywall, limiting the number of tweets that can be seen by those who do not cough up $8 a month, may repel more. 7月1日推出了付费业务，那些不愿支付8美元/月的用户看到的推文数量有限，这可能会引起更多用户流失。Advertisers have fled: Twitter’s ad sales this year will be 28% lower than last, forecasts eMarketer. 广告商纷纷撤离：eMarketer 预测，推特今年的广告销售额将比去年下降 28%。In May Fidelity, a financial-services firm, estimated that the company had lost about two-thirds of its value since Mr Musk agreed to buy 月，金融服务公司“富达”估计，自马斯克同意收购推特以来，推特已蒸发了约2/3的市值。

[Paragraph 4]From this chaos, the clearest winner is Mr Zuckerberg. 从这场混战中，很明显赢家是扎克伯格。By 2021 his business had become synonymous with misinformation and bile. 到 2021 年，他的主业已经成了误导和恶语的代名词。He then irked investors by using his all-powerful position at the firm to pour billions into the metaverse, an unproven passion project that looks years away from making money. No one in Silicon Valley was more polarising.然后，他通过利用自己在公司中的强势地位，在元宇宙这个未经证实的激情项目上投入了数十亿美元，看起来离盈利还有数年的时间，这让投资者很不爽。硅谷没有人比他更两极分化的了。[Paragraph 5]Today Mr Musk’s erratic handling of Twitter makes Mr Zuckerberg’s stewardshipof Meta look like a model of good corporate governance. 如今，马斯克对推特飘忽不定的管理方式使扎克伯格对 Meta 的管理看起来像是良好的公司管理典范。Mr Musk remains more popular than Mr Zuckerberg among Americans (who also fancy his odds in the cage), according to polls from YouGov. 根据 YouGov 的民意调查，美国人对马斯克的支持仍然高于对扎克伯格的支持（美国人认为马斯克的胜算更大）。But Mr Zuckerberg’s approval rating is now the highest it has been in over three years.但是扎克伯格的支持率目前达到了三年多来的最高水平。[Paragraph 6]Meta eyes another, commercial victory. Various startups have tried to capitalise on Twitter’s travails, with little success. Meta 看到了另一个商业取胜机会。许多初创公司都试图利用推特的困境趁虚而入，但成功案例很少。[Paragraph 7]Meta’s effort, Threads, has a better shot. Cloning rivals is what Meta does best. Meta 的Threads 有更大机会。模仿竞争对手是Meta的长项。In 2016, as Snapchat’s disappearing “stories” became popular, Mr Zuckerberg unveiled Instagram Stories, a similar product which helped to keep Instagram on top. 2016 年，随着 Snapchat“读后即焚”的流行，扎克伯格推出了仿品Instagram Stories，帮助 Instagram 保住了霸主地位。Last year, Meta rolled out Reels. In April Mr Zuckerberg said Reels had helped to increase the time spent on Instagram by nearly a quarter.去年，Meta 推出了 Reels。扎克伯格在4月份表示，Reels让Instagram 用户的使用时间增加了近1/4。[Paragraph 8]Threads also has a head start. Unlike Reels, it is its own app. But it lets Instagrammers use their existing login details and follow all the same people with one click. Threads 也有先发优势。与 Reels 不同，Threads是独立的应用程序。但它允许Instagram用户使用现有的登录信息，并通过一键点击就可以关注所有相同的人。Some 87% of Twitter users already use Instagram, according to DataReportal, a research firm; they now have a near-frictionless alternative to Twitter. 据研究公司 DataReportal的数据，约 87% 的推特用户在使用 Instagram；他们现在有了一个近乎完美的推特替代品。Will they switch? For some, it may be enough to have a network that is “sanelyrun”, as Meta’s chief product officer put it recently. 他们会切换过来吗？Meta 首席产品官最近发言称，对一些人来说，拥有一个能“正常运行”的社交平台就够了。Mr Musk may have provided a shoveto the others by announcing a paywall days before Threads’ launch.在Threads发布前几天，马斯克推出了付费业务，这可能会把用户推向Threads。[Paragraph 9]By Meta’s standards, Twitter’s business is tiny, with one-eighth as many users as Facebook, the world’s largest social network. In 2021 Twitter’s revenue was $, against Meta’s $116bn. 以Meta为标准的话，推特的业务规模很小，用户数量只有全球最大社交平台 Facebook 的1/8。2021年，推特的营收为 51 亿美元，而 Meta 的营收为 1160 亿美元。And those meagre earnings bring big platforms attract as many angry oddballsas Twitter. 而微薄收入却带来了大问题。很少有平台像推特那样吸引那么多愤怒又古怪的用户。Lately Meta has shied away from promoting news, which brings political controversy and seems not to delight users. News is a big part of what Twitter does. 最近，Meta避开了新闻业务，因为新闻会带来政治争议，且新闻无法令用户满意。而新闻是推特业务的重要组成部分。[Paragraph 10]Why, then, does Mr Zuckerberg think Threads is worth the headache? 那么，为什么扎克伯格认为Threads是一个令人头疼的对手呢？One reason is advertising. Twitter has never made much money out of its users because it knows little about them. 原因之一是广告。推特未能从用户身上赚到大钱，因为它对用户知之甚少。Between half and two-thirds of those who read tweets are not logged in, estimates Simon Kemp of DataReportal. Many registered users are “lurkers”, who view others’ feeds but seldom engage. DataReportal的西蒙·坎普估计，大约1/2-2/3阅读推文的用户没有登录。许多注册用户都是“潜水者”，他们查看别人的动态，但很少参与互动。Meta, which knows a lot about its users from its other apps, can hit them with well-targeted ads in Threads from day one. Meta公司从旗下应用中了解了很多用户的情况，从第一天起，Threads就可以向用户精准投放广告。[Paragraph 11]Meta’s other possible motive relates to artificial intelligence (AI). Meta的另一个优势与人工智能有关。Online forums like Reddit are scrambling to monetise the billions of words that they hold. Mr Musk has said that Twitter’s paywall is a response to “EXTREME levels of data scraping” by AI firms. Reddit这类在线论坛正竭力将它们所持有的数十亿字的内容变现。马斯克表示，推特的付费业务是对人工智能公司“极度抓取数据”的回应。In setting up a text-based network alongside the visual feeds of Facebook and Instagram, Meta gets a source of rich language data. 通过在Facebook和Instagram的视觉信息流旁边建立一个基于文本的社交平台，Meta获得了丰富的语言数据来源。[Paragraph 12]Launching a social network is hard. Even with its existing users Meta has had its share of failures: Facebook Dating remains unloved and the company’s gaming and shopping initiatives have yet to take off. 推出社交平台很困难。即使是在拥有38亿现有用户的情况下，Meta也经历了一些失败案例：Facebook Dating仍然不受欢迎，该公司的游戏和电商计划也尚未起飞。But as Twitter bleeds users and advertisers, and as Mr Musk’s management continues on its eccentricpath, the opportunity is becoming bigger. 但随着推特用户和广告商的流失，以及马斯克在古怪的管理道路上越走越远，Meta的胜算越来越大。Regardless of who prevails in the cage, Mr Zuckerberg may come away with the spoils. 不管谁在这场竞争中获胜，扎克伯格可能会赢得战利品。（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量900左右，有删减）原文出自：2023年7月8日《The Economist》Business版块

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【补充资料】（来自于网络）Threads是Facebook推出的一款社交平台，旨在为用户提供一个私密、安全的空间来与亲密的朋友和亲人进行沟通和分享。Threads主要以短信和照片分享为核心功能，与Facebook Messenger紧密结合。用户可以通过Threads与Facebook好友进行一对一或群组聊天，同时还可以将自己的状态通过动态贴纸和照片分享给好友。强调用户的隐私和安全。用户可以选择自己要与哪些好友分享自己的动态，并可以随时更改。用户还可以设定自动状态功能，根据当前的位置、移动速度和电量等信息来自动更新状态。例如当用户在开车或旅行时，Threads可以显示用户的状态为“正在开车”或“正在旅行”。暗模式可以使界面更加舒适，减少眼睛的疲劳。【重点句子】（3个）Mr Musk’s tenure at Twitter has been bruising for many parties. 马斯克在管理推特期间，对许多方都造成了伤害。From this chaos, the clearest winner is Mr Zuckerberg. 从这场混战中，很明显赢家是扎克伯格。In setting up a text-based network alongside the visual feeds of Facebook and Instagram, Meta gets a source of rich language data. 通过在Facebook和Instagram的视觉信息流旁边建立一个基于文本的社交平台，Meta获得了丰富的语言数据来源。