About a decade ago, the neural network of the international financial system underwent an identity crisis. Since its establishment in 1973, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) had become the world's dominant system for transmitting information about financial transactions, handling up to 20 million messages per day across 212 jurisdictions. The Belgium-based company reached this position by providing customers with a reliable, confidential, and global system to exchange information. “[W]e have always maintained the position that we are like the internet,” Swift chief executive officer Gottfried Leibbrandt said in an October 2012 interview, “we connect everybody and we do not listen in on the conversation.” In other words, to borrow a phrase from its website, “Swift is neutral.”

中文翻译：

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武器化世界中的中立和治理


大约十年前，国际金融体系的神经网络经历了一场身份危机。自 1973 年成立以来，环球银行间金融电信协会 （Swift） 已成为全球金融交易信息传输的主要系统，每天处理 212 个司法管辖区的多达 2000 万条消息。这家总部位于比利时的公司通过为客户提供可靠、保密的全球信息交换系统来达到这一地位。“我们始终认为，我们就像互联网一样，”斯威夫特首席执行官戈特弗里德·莱布兰特 （Gottfried Leibbrandt） 在 2012 年 10 月的一次采访中说，“我们连接了所有人，我们不监听对话。换句话说，借用其网站上的一句话，“Swift 是中立的”。