Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Social Media
  3. News

Facebook provides a whopping 2 billion daily text translations

By

facebook jobs tab woman using
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Facebook is truly a global social network, boasting 1.65 billion users across the world. With all those people come a wide variety of languages. But the platform isn’t letting native tongues stand in the way of its mission to connect users.

Facebook claims that it is now providing 2 billion text translations per day thanks to its automated system. Additionally, close to half of Facebook’s massive user base, 800 million people in total, now see translations each month.

Recommended Videos

Those insane statistics come courtesy of Alan Packer, the man in charge of Facebook’s language technology. Packer revealed the figures during his talk at MIT Technology Review’s Emtech Digital conference in San Francisco, which itself centers on artificial intelligence and machine learning. The context is important as Packer took the opportunity to announce Facebook’s planned move to a new translation system based on artificial neural networks.

Facebook’s present system took over translation tasks from the social network’s crowdsourcing tool, which relied on its users in various countries to help with the process, in 2011. The automated software can detect 40 different languages in 1,800 directions, such as French to English, reports TechCrunch.

Facebook language stats. In case you're curious: emojis get no translation. #universallanguage? #EmTechDigital pic.twitter.com/q5rFWAAY0k

— Leah Hunter (@leahthehunter) May 23, 2016

The move to AI is expected to be completed later this year. Packer claims that compared to the statistical machine translation currently being utilized, neural networks will produce more natural-sounding translations.

The large stores of data that Facebook has access to, which includes an archive of roughly 2 trillion posts and comments, are being used to teach its AI more accurate interpretations of global idioms and metaphors. One particular case referenced by Packer in his talk saw the AI spot a French variation on the word “wow,” which was being changed to “uau” by teenagers in the country. As a result, the machine-learning system now translates that term appropriately.

Packer also stated that its popular translation software is leading users to “have more friends, more friends of friends, and get exposed to more concepts and cultures.”

Correction: The original article listed MIT as the Emtech Digital organizer, when it is in fact hosted by the publication, MIT Technology Review.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Saqib Shah
Saqib Shah
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Saqib Shah is a Twitter addict and film fan with an obsessive interest in pop culture trends. In his spare time he can be…
Bluesky barrels toward 1 million new sign-ups in a day
Bluesky social media app logo.

Social media app Bluesky has picked nearly a million new users just a day after exiting its invitation-only beta and opening to everyone.

In a post on its main rival -- X (formerly Twitter) -- Bluesky shared a chart showing a sudden boost in usage on the app, which can now be downloaded for free for iPhone and Android devices.

Read more
How to make a GIF from a YouTube video
woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Read more
I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened
An Instagram profile on an iPhone.

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.

Read more