By any measure, Twitter hit particularly rough conditions on Tuesday night, which sent its share price into a tailspin.

无论怎么看，周二晚上Twitter陷入了棘手窘境，导致其股价大跌。

At one point in the final hours of trading, the stock had lost more than $8bn (£5bn), or 25% of its opening price.

就在股市交易最后几小时中的某一时刻，市值损失了超过80亿美元（50亿英镑），股价大跌25%。

What actually happened?

到底发生了什么呢?

Twitter was due to announce its earnings¹ for the first quarter of the year after close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, where the company is listed.

Twitter是纽约证交所上市公司，本应在纽约证交所股市收盘时发布第一季度的财报的。

Announcing results after the markets close gives investors³ a chance to digest the news, sleep on it, and then start trading again the next day.

股市收盘时才公布结果可以让投资者有机会消化下新闻内容、思考思考，第二天再开始交易。

Except it turns out that somebody thought it would be a good idea to release this information early, on the technology-led Nasdaq-run investor² relations page for Twitter.

结果有人觉得提前发布消息也不错，便在科技主导、纳斯达克经营的投资关系页面上替Twitter提前把消息泄露了。

Initially⁴ it seemed no-one really noticed the error, until a well-placed tweet highlighteded the mistake and revealed Twitter's disappointing results.

一开始似乎也没人注意到这个错误，直到那条醒目的推文泄露了Twitter令人失望的财报结果，才吸引了人们关注。

How come Selerity got the news early, and who are they anyway?

Selerity是怎么事先得到消息的呢？Selerity又是什么来头？

Selerity is a tech start-up running a very specific service catereded to investors.

Selerity是一个给投资者提供专项服务的新兴科技公司。

It automatically scans all sorts of documents, press releases, and social media online and looks for anything that could prove useful to investors.

会自动扫描各种文件、新闻发布会和网络社交媒体，并且寻找任何可能对投资者有利的信息。

It then reports back to subscribers with what it describes as real-time actionable intelligence.

然后Selerity把信息和所谓的实时可操作情报一并发给订阅用户。

In this case, it picked up the early Nasdaq posting.

这一次，Selerity获取了纳斯达克早先发布的信息。

The company then tweeted the figures under the hashtag "#breaking", ensuring that the world and his dog would know of Twitter's failings through its own service.

Selerity推送了数据并贴上“爆炸新闻”的标签，确保全世界和Twitter的忠粉可以通过Twitter自己的平台了解其衰落。

Selerity then tweeted its source, adding to Twitter's embarrassment⁵ by making it clear that the results had been neither leaked or hacked⁶.

然后Selerity又把消息源推送了一遍，表明既不是消息走漏也不是被黑客攻击所致，把Twitter推向了尴尬的境地。

So who is to blame?

到底怪谁呢？

Well, it seems that Nasdaq slipped up here after Twitter furnished the exchange with earnings details ahead of time ready for official publication.

当然了，比Twitter官方提前公布了财报看似是纳斯达克的错。

It is like someone breaking an embargo⁷ on a news story.

这就像是有人解除了新闻报道的禁令。

The key factor in Tuesday evening's fiasco was that Selerity's automatic computer programs, called bots, which scan the web for juicy financial details, were able to find the mistake so quickly.

周二晚这次惨败的关键在于Selerity的自动计算机程序bots。bots是一种能执行外部命令的自动运行型木马，可以扫描网页搜寻有利可图的秘密信息。

Selerity then made sure that everyone knew about it through Twitter's own platform, but it did not break any rules in doing so as the results had already been published and were effectively in the public arena⁸.

Selerity确保大家是通过Twitter自己的平台知道消息，而过程却没有任何违规，让财报结果得以发布并且绘声绘色地出现在公众视野里。

Nasdaq blamed the error on a division of its business called Shareholder⁹.com, which provides investor relations services.

纳斯达克把这错误怪罪Shareholder网。Shareholder网是纳斯达克的商务分支，提供投资关系服务。

It is not the first time this has happened.

这也不是第一次发生此类事件了。

Six months ago, Nasdaq accidentally published JPMorgan's quarterly results hours before close of trading.

六个月前，纳斯达克在交易结束前几小时意外地发布了JP摩根的季度财报。

It has all left Twitter, which did not have great news to share with investors anyway, somewhat red-faced.

此次这么一来，Twitter尴尬了，也没有什么利好消息可以和投资者分享了。