【新闻精讲】

Yet despite all the attention given to fake news, the other problems probably have Mr Zuckerberg just as worried. On November 18th, to the surprise of many, Facebook announced that it would buy back up to $6bn of its shares. That seemed to be in reaction to a 10% drop in its share price since it warned earlier this month that growth next year would be slower and margins lower, as ad space on its services gets tighter and it invests heavily in data centres. The buy-back signals that Facebook considers its shares undervalued, says Mark Mahaney of RBC Capital, an investment bank.

尽管假新闻已引起了广泛的关注，其他一些问题似乎也同样令扎克伯格担忧。11月18日，Facebook宣布将回购最高达60亿美元的公司股份，这令很多人甚为惊讶。11月早些时候，因广告投放量驱向饱和，以及公司对数据中心大手笔的投资，Facebook发出了下一年增长将放缓、利润会降低的预警。这之后，公司股价下跌了10%。回购股票之举看起来像是对这种局面的回应。投行RBC Capital的马克氠哈尼（Mark Mahaney）认为，Facebook此举也许表示，公司自认为其股价估值过低。

A couple of days earlier, Facebook had to admit flaws in how it measures its traffic (for the second time in just a few weeks, after disclosing that it had overestimated the average viewing time for its video ads). This time it said that other numbers, including the quantity of clicks from Facebook posts to apps or websites, were smaller than previously stated. Although this did not lead advertisers to overpay, they are likely to make new demands of Facebook, for instance to provide more data about exactly how its ads are viewed.

在这几天前，Facebook不得不承认其流量测算方法存在缺陷。这已是Facebook在几周内第二次承认存在这一问题，之前它曾披露自己高估了视频广告的平均观看时长。这一次它坦言，从Facebook帖子到应用或网站的点击量等其他数字也比先前声称的要小。尽管这并没有导致广告主多掏腰包，但他们之后很可能会向Facebook提出新的要求，例如提供更多关于广告观看情况究竟如何的数据。

It has also emerged that Facebook has “paused” the ongoing process of merging its data with those of WhatsApp, the messaging app it bought in 2014 for $19bn in shares. When the takeover was announced, Jan Koum, WhatsApp’s founder, promised users their data would stay apart. In August Facebook reneged on the pledge, which upset various privacy watchdogs in Europe. In September the city of Hamburg’s data-protection commissioner issued an order that stops Facebook collecting data from German users of WhatsApp.

此外，Facebook还已“暂停”将其数据与WhatsApp的数据合并。2014年，Facebook以190亿美元（包含股票）收购了通讯应用WhatsApp。当初这起收购被公布时，WhatsApp创始人简錠姆（Jan Koum）曾向用户许诺，该应用与Facebook的数据将保持分离。而在8月，Facebook却违背了这项承诺，并因此引起了欧洲各地隐私保护机构的不满。9月，汉堡市的数据保护专员命其停止收集WhatsApp德国用户的数据。

takeover n.收购
Renege v.毁约，食言
- He promised to pay but later reneged.
Pledge n.承诺 （promise）
Watchdog n.检查者（机构）

Whether all this will have a discernible impact on Facebook’s finances is a matter of debate among analysts. If advertisers have extra money to spend they do it where they get most bang for their buck, which, Google aside, is Facebook, says Peter Stabler of Wells Fargo Securities. In contrast, Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research recently wrote that the focus on fake news and the concerns over the measurement of advertising could well cut revenue growth by a couple of percentage points.

至于以上种种会不会对Facebook的财务状况产生明显的影响，分析人士们则莫衷一是。富国证券（Wells Fargo Securities）的彼得斯塔普勒（Peter Stabler）认为，如果广告主有闲钱，他们会更愿意把钱花在能带来最大收益的地方，而这种地方除了谷歌，就是Facebook了。相比之下，Pivotal Research的布莱恩威瑟（Brian Wieser）近日则撰文指出，假新闻所引发的的关注以及广告效果测量引起的担忧很可能会令Facebook的营收增长率降低两三个百分点

Discernible adj.可辨识的，明显的
- discern v.识别
- I'm unable to discern his motives.
bang for someone's buck / bang for the buck 物有所值