希拉里“购置”2百多万推特粉丝

Although Hillary Clinton boasts a robust 3.6 million Twitter followers, not even a vast right-wing conspiracy would be able to interact with 2 million of them.
虽然希拉里·克林顿号称拥有一个多达360万人的强大推特粉丝团，但即使是势力庞大的右翼阴谋集团也别想与他们当中的2百万人说上话。

According to two popular online measuring tools, no more than 44 per cent of her Twitter fan base consists of real people who are active in using the social media platform.
根据两款流行的在线监测工具的测试结果，她的推特粉丝团里至多有44%是活跃于该社交平台的真人。

And at least 15 per cent – more than 544,000 – are completely fake.
而至少有15%（超过54.4万）的粉丝是完全假冒的。

StatusPeople.com, the oldest publicly available Twitter-auditing tool, reports that 44 per cent of the former secretary of state's followers are 'good'; 15 per cent are 'fake'; and 41 per cent are 'inactive,' meaning that they never tweet or reply to any tweets.
根据最古老的推特公开审计工具StatusPeople.com的报告， 这位前国务卿的粉丝有44%是真实的，15%是假冒的，41%是僵尸粉——也就是说这些人从不发微博，也不回复任何微博。

Just 4 per cent of President Barack Obama's Twitter followers, by comparison, are considered fake.
相比之下，奥巴马总统的推特粉丝只有4%是冒牌的。

The White House worked overtime to purge most of them after a September 2013 report found that more than half of his followers didn't really exist.
2013年9月的一个报告称，半数以上奥巴马的粉丝并不是真实存在的，为此白宫加班加点清除了大部分僵尸粉。

Michelle Obama's Twitter audience is 25 per cent fake, according to StatusPeople, along with 21 per cent of Vice President Joe Biden's.
根据StatusPeople的统计，米歇尔·奥巴马有25%的推特粉丝是假的，而副总统拜登的假粉比例为21%。

Another tool, TwitterAudit.com, sampled 320,000 of Mrs. Clinton's followers and found that 18 per cent were fake.
另一个统计工具TwitterAudit.com抽取了32万个希拉里·克林顿的推特粉丝，发现18%是冒牌的。

The new measurements will add to the Clinton presidential campaign's embarrassment following news on Tuesday that a large number of her Facebook fans may represent 'likes' that were purchased rather than earned.
这一新的监测结果使希拉里·克林顿的总统竞选活动陷入进一步的窘境，因为上周二已有消息称，大部分希拉里的Facebook点赞可能是买来的，而不是粉丝自发的。

Facebook谎言：希拉里·克林顿号称100万Facebook粉丝中有三分之二给她点赞，但这些人中有超过4.6万显示所在地为巴格达

Vocativ reported that at least 7 per cent of them listed Baghdad, Iraq as their hometown, a larger number than any US city.
据Vocativ报道，“点赞粉”当中至少有7%显示其所在地为伊拉克巴格达，这一数字多于任何一座美国城市。

That would represent more than 46,000 people.
这就意味着有4.6万多人。

Additional evidence of digital astroturfing is that while most of her U.S. Facebook fans are older than 55, most of the Baghdad contingent is in the 18-34 age range.
“花钱买粉”的另一个证据是希拉里Facebook上美国粉丝的年龄普遍在55岁以上，而她的大部分巴格达粉丝年龄在18-34岁。

While Clinton was America's top diplomat, her State Department was buying Facebook 'likes,' according to an Associated Press report from last year.
根据美联社去年的报道，当希拉里还是美国最高外交官时，其所在的国务院就在买Facebook点赞量。

'In 2013, the State Department, which has more than 400,000 likes and was recently most popular in Cairo, said it would stop buying Facebook fans after its inspector general criticized the agency for spending $630,000 to boost the numbers,' the wire service reported.
该报道称，“2013年时，国务院已收到40多万的点赞量，尤其在开罗大受欢迎。因受检察长批评花63万美元涨粉，国务院才宣布将停止这一购粉行为。”

Clinton left the agency while the inspector general was investigating.
希拉里离开国务院时，检察长仍在调查此事。

Facebook says it has entire teams of employees tasked with rooting out schemes to artificially boost statistics.
Facebook称已雇佣专职团队负责根除人为地提高受欢迎统计数据的计划。

'When we catch fraudulent activity, we work to counter and prevent it – including blocking accounts and removing fake likes,' the company reports on its website.
该公司在其网站上称：“当发现欺骗性的活动时，我们都努力进行矫正和预防，包括封号和删除虚假点赞量。”

Vocabulary

purge：净化，清洗

astroturfing：人造草皮（这里指假粉丝）

contingent：代表团，小分队

fraudulent ：欺骗性的