New translation website will offer new take on news from Arabic world

This article was migrated from an old version of our website in 2025. As a result, it might have some low-quality images or non-functioning links - if there's any issues you'd like to see fixed, get in touch with us at info@journalism.co.uk.

A new website aimed at improving relations between Arabic and western nations through real-time translation of news reports has gone live. Meedan , which has been running as a beta site for nine months, uses new machine-assisted translation technology and human editors to provide news and an online network for Arabic and English-speaking users.

The not-for-profit site is focused on local views of news events, uploaded by users, to provide an alternative perspective on reportage on Arabic news away from traditional western news organisations and agency coverage.

"When we started this project we asked, 'What would it take to let someone in Nebraska see an event through the eyes of someone in Nablus?'," said project manager Ed Bice, who hopes the site will help improve understanding between the Arab world and the West - something which has so far not been achieved by an increase in 'citizen journalism'.

"In spite of the advent of citizen generated media, the wealth and breadth of opinion on the Arab web is lost to English speakers," said Bice.

"English speakers tend to see the world through western media, Arabic speakers tend to see the world through Arab media.

"In many cases we are looking at the same events with two substantially different narratives. Meedan is an effort to address this fundamental problem."

Every piece of user-generated content posted to the site will first be put through the machine-assisted translation engine and then worked on by human editors to improve the quality of translation. Article links posted to the site by users will be translated on the spot.

The editorial team will encourage users to contribute their own translations, links and comments to the system by scouring through Arabic and western media sources and translating relevant content. The project has five core staff, 15 translators and roughly 10 editors, mostly based in the Middle East.

By building a community of contributors and translators the quality of Meedan's translations will improve, says the project's vice-president of engineering Dr Anas Tawileh: "We want to replicate the lessons of Wikipedia. It has shown that volunteers will work together to create high-quality content."

Meedan's community manager George Weyman told Journalism.co.uk that key challenges of the project involved creating an effective moderation policy that takes account of cultural differences and understanding the needs of users from areas of the world with lower web literacy and internet connectivity. The site also has to deal with risk of posters contributing material which a government in the Arabic region would deem threatening to national security he said.

While big news organisations in the Arab world often report events in a similarly straight style to their western counterparts, user comments and opinion pieces offer a different perspective, said Weyman: "Take for example the Hijab - Arabic speaking users often have very strong views on female modesty in Europe, which contrast with how the issue is reported in the UK . Even more interesting is when Arab users disagree - for example, Saudi users disagreed over child marriage , or when Arabic speaking users disagreed about whether it was right to arrest Muslims in Egypt for failing to fast during Ramadan."

The site's technology and its forum function have already been used by international partners to help organise events and translate discussions and relevant resources for groups in the West and Middle East, for example producing a series of cross-language liveblogs for a United States Institute of Peace event.