外刊精读 558 | Facebook母公司Meta首次报告营收下降；FTC起诉Meta 阻止其收购VR健身应用开发商

The US competition regulator is suing to block Meta from acquiring a virtual reality fitness start-up, accusing the social networking giant of “illegally” trying to “buy its way to the top” of the nascent metaverse sector.

美国竞争监管机构正在提起诉讼，以阻止Meta收购一家虚拟现实健身初创企业，指控这家社交网络巨头“非法”尝试“通过收购登上”新兴的元宇宙行业的“顶端”。

The Federal Trade Commission’s case centres on a deal struck last year by Meta, formerly known as Facebook, to acquire Within, the creator of a popular virtual reality fitness game, Supernatural. The app is one of the most popular on Meta’s virtual reality system, Meta Quest. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed.

美国联邦贸易委员会(FTC)的案件聚焦于去年Meta（前身为Facebook）收购Within的交易上，后者是热门虚拟现实健身游戏Supernatural的开发商。这款应用是Meta虚拟现实系统Meta Quest中最受欢迎的应用之一。收购交易金额未披露。

The FTC, led by Biden appointee and prominent Big Tech critic Lina Khan, has now moved to stop the takeover, accusing Meta of using its power to cement its dominant position in the growing market.

FTC由拜登任命的著名科技巨头批评者莉娜•汗(Lina Khan)领导，现在已经采取行动阻止收购，指责Meta利用其权力来巩固其在这个不断增长的市场中的主导地位。

——英文原题为FTC sues Meta to block acquisition of VR fitness app maker Within

Meta has blamed macroeconomic pressures for its first year-on-year quarterly revenue decline and offered investors a gloomy outlook for the coming months as advertisers pull back on spending.

Meta将其首次季度营收同比下降归咎于宏观经济压力，并对投资者表示，随着广告商缩减支出，未来几个月前景黯淡。

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, on Wednesday said revenues for the April-June period were $28.82bn, down 1 per cent on the same period in 2021. Analysts had expected revenue of $28.92bn, according to consensus data compiled by FactSet.

Meta（Facebook前身）周三表示，今年4月至6月的营收为288.2亿美元，比2021年同期下降1%。根据FactSet编制的共识数据，分析师此前预计营收为289.2亿美元。

Speaking to investors, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg painted a bleak picture for the remainder of 2022. “We seem to have entered an economic downturn that will have a broad impact on the digital advertising business,” he said.

首席执行官马克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)在对投资者讲话时描绘了2022年剩余时间的惨淡前景。他说：“我们似乎已经进入了一场经济衰退，这将对数字广告业务产生广泛影响。”

——英文原题为Facebook parent Meta reports first decline in revenue

Since the Federal Reserve in March embarked on what is now the fastest pace of interest rate rises since 1981, it has provided painstaking detail about its future plans to tighten monetary policy.

今年3月，美联储(Fed)启动了自1981年以来最快的加息步伐。自那以来，美联储就未来收紧货币政策的计划提供了大量细节。

On Wednesday, that changed, with chair Jay Powell announcing the US central bank would shy away from offering an official running commentary on its quest to stamp out soaring inflation.

周三，情况发生了变化，美联储主席杰伊•鲍威尔(Jay Powell)宣布，美联储将避免就其遏制通胀飙升的努力连续发表官方评论。

“It’s time to just go to a meeting-by-meeting basis and to not provide the kind of clear guidance that we had provided,” Powell said at a press conference after the Fed increased its main interest rate by 0.75 percentage points for the second month in a row.

在美联储连续第二个月将主要利率上调0.75个百分点后，鲍威尔在新闻发布会上说示：“现在是时候在逐次会议上做出决定，而不再提供我们曾经提供的那种明确指引了。”

——英文原题为Fed’s Jay Powell calls time on running commentary for rate rises

The US is expected to report weak second-quarter growth on Thursday following a contraction in the first three months of the year, avoiding a so-called technical recession but still reflecting a slowdown in the economy.

继今年前三个月的萎缩之后，美国预计将在周四报告疲软的第二季度增长，避免了所谓的技术性衰退，但仍反映了经济的放缓。

A Bloomberg survey of economists found the median estimate for growth to be 0.5 per cent on an annualised basis, or a 0.1 per cent rise compared with the previous quarter — the measure used by other major economies. That follows first-quarter gross domestic product data showing the US economy unexpectedly shrank by 1.6 per cent.

彭博社(Bloomberg)对经济学家进行的一项调查发现，按年率计算，美国经济增长的预期中值为0.5%，较上一季度增长0.1%——这是其它主要经济体使用的衡量标准。此前，美国第一季度国内生产总值(GDP)数据显示，美国经济意外收缩1.6%。

A technical recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction. However, the US does not use this definition and instead relies on a determination by a group of researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research, based on a broader range of factors.

技术性衰退的定义是GDP连续两个季度收缩。然而，美国并没有使用这一定义，而是依赖于美国国家经济研究院(National Bureau of Economic Research)一组研究人员根据更广泛的因素得出的结论。

——英文原题为US expected to dodge technical recession with weak second-quarter growth