听考研真题|2021年英一阅读4:网络世界如何保持中立?

From the early days of broadband, advocates for consumers and web-based companies worried that the cable and phone companies selling broadband connections had the power and incentive to favor affiliated websites over their rivals’. 

【生词】cable n.电缆, 缆绳，钢索, 有线电视, 电报; v.给…发电报

incentive n.动机, 刺激, 诱因, 鼓励

affiliated adj.隶属的

【翻译】在宽带服务问世之初，消费者权益倡导者及互联网企业便担忧：提供宽带服务的有线电视和电话运营商手中握有权力与利益驱动，从而倾向于偏袒其关联网站而非竞争对手。

That’s why there has been such a strong demand for rules that would prevent broadband providers from picking winners and losers online, preserving the freedom and innovation that have been the lifeblood of the Internet.

【翻译】正因如此，市场对制定相关法规的需求十分强烈——这些法规旨在防止宽带服务提供商在互联网领域进行优胜劣汰的筛选，从而维护作为互联网生命线的自由与创新。

Yet that demand has been almost impossible to fill—in part because of pushback from broadband providers, anti-regulatory conservatives and the courts. 

【生词】pushback n.对计划、想法或变化的反对或抵抗, 飞机推迟起飞, 推出

A federal appeals court weighed in again Tuesday, but instead of providing a badly needed resolution, it only prolonged the fight. 

【生词】prolong vt.延长，拉长, 拖延，延期

At issue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was the latest take of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on net neutrality, adopted on a party-line vote in 2017. 

【生词】neutrality n.中立，中立地位, <化>中性

【翻译】美国哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院审理的案件，涉及美国联邦通信委员会（FCC）对网络中立性原则所作的最新解释——该解释于2017年通过党派分立投票方式通过。

The Republican-penned order not only eliminated the strict net neutrality rules the FCC had adopted when it had a Democratic majority in 2015, but rejected the commission’s authority to require broadband providers to do much of anything. 

The order also declared that state and local governments couldn’t regulate broadband providers either.

The commission argued that other agencies would protect against anti-competitive behavior, such as a broadband-providing conglomerate like AT&T favoring its own video-streaming service at the expense of Netflix and Apple TV.

【生词】conglomerate n.联合大企业, 砾岩, 合成物, 组合物

【翻译】该委员会认为，其他监管机构能够有效防范反竞争行为——例如，像 AT&T 这样提供宽带服务的大型企业可能会优先推广其自家的视频流媒体服务，从而损害 Netflix 和 Apple TV 的利益。

Yet the FCC also ended the investigations of broadband providers that imposed data caps on their rivals’streaming services but not their own.

【翻译】然而，美国联邦通信委员会（FCC）也终止了对那些对竞争对手的流媒体服务设置数据流量上限、但对自身服务未设此类限制的宽带运营商的调查。

On Tuesday, the appeals court unanimously upheld the 2017 order deregulating broadband providers, citing a Supreme Court ruling from 2005 that upheld a similarly deregulatory move.

【生词】unanimously adv.无异议地，全体一致地

uphold vt.支持, 维持, 赞成, 支撑

deregulatory adj. 解除管制的

But Judge Patricia Millett rightly argued in a concurring opinion that “the result is unhinged from the realities of modern broadband service,”and said Congress or the Supreme Court could intervene to “avoid trapping Internet regulation in technological anachronism.”

【生词】intervene v.出面；介入, 阻碍；干扰, 插嘴, 介于…之间

anachronism n.时代错误, 不合时代的事，过时的事或人

【翻译】然而，帕特里夏·米利特法官在一份协同意见书中正确地指出：“这一结果与现代宽带服务的现实情况相脱节”，并表示国会或最高法院可介入干预，以“避免将互联网监管困于技术过时的窠臼之中”。

In the meantime, the court threw out the FCC’s attempt to block all state rules on net neutrality, while preserving the commission’s power to preempt individual state laws that undermine its order. 

【生词】preempt vt.先占, 取代, 先取, 先发制人

undermine v.逐渐削弱, 使逐步减少效力, 从根基处破坏, 挖…的墙脚

That means more battles like the one now going on between the Justice Department and California, which enacted a tough net neutrality law in the wake of the FCC’s abdication.

【生词】abdication n.退位，辞职, （权力、权利、要求、职责、责任等的）放弃

【翻译】这意味着将出现更多类似当前司法部与加利福尼亚州之间展开的这场争端——后者在联邦通信委员会（FCC）放弃监管职责后，颁布了一项严格的网络中立性法律。

The endless legal battles and back-and-forth at the FCC cry out for Congress to act.

【生词】back-and-forth 来回地, 一来一往

cry out  呼喊，尖叫, 迫切需要, 叫唤, 呐喊

It needs to give the commission explicit authority once and for all to bar broadband providers from meddling in the traffic on their network and to create clear rules protecting openness and innovation online.

【翻译】该法案需赋予欧盟委员会一项明确且最终的授权，禁止宽带服务提供商干预其网络中的数据流量，并制定清晰的规则以保护网络空间的开放性与创新性。