Twitter has begun trialls of new technology that translates accounts and tweets of some high profile Egyptians from Arabic into English.
Powered by Microsoft Bing translator, the new service has been introduced to make people around the globe better understand and hear what is happenings in Egypt.
Twitter said in a statement: "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."
As part of the trial, the new service has translated accounts of about 100 Twitter users, including Mohammed Morsi, the president ousted by Egypt’s military, prominent leader of opposition Mohammed ElBaradei and Arab Spring activist Wael Ghonim.
Prior to translating Arabic, Twitter had already started the experimental translation service in July 2013, covering European languages including Italian, French and Spanish.
Currently, Twitter has no plans to enable a translation service across the platform or to make it a permanent feature.
Other social media sites including Facebook offer a translate feature for foreign-language posts, while Google’s search engine offers a similar feature.
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