Twitter enables translation on certain user’s tweets following Egypt crisis

Things are quite tense in Egypt right now and, to help the world follow what’s happening, Twitter has enabled an automatic translation feature similar to Facebook’s, which will allow English-speaking users to read the tweets of Egyptian tweeters, reports GigaOm.

Based on the report, the feature has only been enabled on high-profile accounts that are reporting on the political unrest in Egypt right now.

Twitter has long been heralded as the platform that breaks news, and has since found ways to embed itself into the world of news reporting and consumption. A few months ago the company posted a job looking for a head of news and journalism stating that Twitter “is playing an integral role in the evolution of the news industry — both as a tool for reporters and newsrooms and as a way for consumers to find news in real-time”.

“As part of our experiment with Tweet text translation, we’ve enabled translation for some of the most-followed accounts in Egypt, so people around the world can better understand and keep up with what’s happening there,” said Twitter in a statement.

As with Facebook’s translation feature Twitter works with Microsoft-owned Bing Translator, which seems to be growing in popularity with social platforms. Twitter hasn’t said if it will enable the translation feature across the platform or if it will make it a permanent feature either.

Here is a list of all the accounts that Twitter has enabled translation on.

Image Credit: @AlDostourP>