It goes without saying that if you need to use an automated translation service such as Google Translate, you can’t personally know if the translation is correct. Of course, we assume that translation missteps are limited to the odd grammar and word usage manifesting themselves when a computer (the ultimate nerd) translates one sometimes illogical human language into another sometimes illogical human language. But what if some “missteps” were Machiavellian attempts to censor information via artificial intelligence? How would you know?
Just such furtive censorship is occurring, reveals Arabic-fluent writer Raymond Ibrahim. To wit: Google Translate censored an Al Jazeera article passage to obscure how Palestinians are “inspired” by history’s land-grabbing oppressors, to paraphrase Ibrahim.
The commentator, whose main focuses is exposing Muslim jihadist aims, became aware of the deception after writing about the Al Jazeera article on June 17. Penned by a Palestinian professor, the Arabic piece “is about how Palestinians find inspiration in the jihads of history,” Ibrahim explains.
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Now, he’d quoted the professor as writing that “prominent among” the jihads is “the raid of Badr, the opening of Mecca, the opening of al-Andalus, and the battle of the pavement of martyrs [the Battle of Tours].” It’s a simple translation for an Arabic speaker.
But not for Google. In fact, in the tech behemoth’s English translation, the Battle of Tours, raids, and past conquests aren’t mentioned at all. Poof, gone.
Ironically, Ibrahim has an apparently liberal critic to thank for uncovering the deception. For after his article was published, Ibrahim was contacted by readers concerned that he might have mistranslated Al Jazeera. Making them thus wonder was the following snarky post by the critic, one “Dan Foster,” which appeared under Ibrahim’s piece at FrontPage Magazine:
An honest reader would be forgiven if they thought Ibrahim were actually talking about the Al Jazeera at the beginning of this piece. He’s not of course. He seems to have forgotten that while google translate isn’t 100% reliable it: a. Exists and b. translates webpages. So I was actually able to read the article he linked. It doesn’t reference the Battle of Tours or raids and conquests of the past. The title gives you a clue what it actually is about:
“This is how the Palestinian resistance made Ramadan a season of operations and victories”
The bulk of the article is about different attacks carried about over the course of 20 odd years.
So to all FPMers how does it feel to be lied to yet again?
This inspired Ibrahim to put the sentence in question into Google Translate himself, and lo and behold, Foster was right — about Google’s (Sharia?) translation. When he returned to the Al Jazeera article in the original Arabic, however, the sentence, as he’d translated it, was still there. For those who can read Arabic, the relevant Al Jazeera passage follows.
استمدت المقاومة حالة التعبئة والتحريض على تنفيذ عملياتها في شهر رمضان من التاريخ الحافل للحروب والفتوحات التي شهدها هذا الشهر، فظهر حرص المسلمين على خوض بعض الغزوات خلاله، ومن أهمها غزوة بدر، وفتح مكة، وفتح الأندلس، ومعركة بلاط الشهداء، ومعركة عين جالوت، وحرب رمضان/أكتوبر، وكلها شكلت إلهاما للمقاومة الفلسطينية لمحاكاتها.
Of course, some may still choose to believe Google. So I decided to put the above text into Google Translate myself and then compare its results to an alternative translation service’s. Here’s Google’s:
The resistance derived the state of mobilization and incitement to carry out its operations in the month of Ramadan from the history of wars and conquests that this month witnessed. Ramadan/October, all of which inspired the Palestinian resistance to emulate it.
Now here’s Microsoft Bing’s translation of the same Arabic text:
The resistance drew the state of mobilization and incitement to carry out its operations during Ramadan from the rich history of wars and conquests witnessed this month, and the keenness of Muslims to fight some of the invasions during it, the most important of which was the invasion of Badr, the conquest of Mecca, the conquest of Andalusia, the battle of the court of martyrs, the battle of Ain Goliath, and the War of Ramadan/October, all of which inspired the Palestinian resistance to fight it.
Google’s is more than 50 percent — 44 words — lighter. Busted.
Ibrahim writes of this, “Now, I don’t know if Google Translate omitted that damning reference because it obviously provokes the question I raised — why are oppressed Palestinians inspired by the land-grabbing oppressors of history? — before or after I cast the spotlight on it in my article.”
“Either way, now you can add Google Translate to all of the other nefarious ways that Google and other Big Tech giants censor and manipulate information,” he continues.
This is no small matter. How many other “Dan Fosters,” either credulously or confirmation-bias-driven, will readily believe such “dis-translation” and dismiss important truths as damnable lies — and then quite naturally spread those lies?
Remember that this manipulation of the Al Jazeera article would just be the iceberg’s tip, one of perhaps innumerable examples of Google Translate censorship. Note here that the service could be the world’s most widely used, supporting 109 languages (as of July 2021) and boasting more than 500 million users and 100 billion words translated daily (as of 2016).
The good news is that you can easily access other automated translation services, as the article “7 Best Google Translate Alternatives for 2021” makes clear.
Moreover, it’s now apparent that a good idea when using such a service is to cross-reference it with a competitor to see if the translations match — especially when a passage deals with politically sensitive matters.
But here’s a simple translation of the 925 words above: Dump Google; it stinks.
