Localization Lab and Internews’ latest report, “Wait, Who’s Timothy McVeigh?”: A Translation Review of Facebook and YouTube Content Moderation Policies in Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, and Hindi, documents the quality and usability of Facebook and YouTube content moderation policies in four languages.
The study found that the translations of Facebook and YouTube’s content moderation policies in these languages are far below a standard that would be considered acceptable by the average user. Each of the translations showed numerous and systematic errors that impacted readers’ ability to understand the policy without referencing the original version in English.
The report also discusses how translation impacts the entire value chain of content moderation and platform governance—from end-users’ ability to report content to moderators’ ability to detect and remove harmful content and to regulators’ knowledge about what content is on the platform. The report includes recommendations for improving translation policies and processes, as well as for advancing best practices in translation across the industry.
Localization Lab and Internews will be presenting the report and hosting a panel discussion at Bread and Net 2022:
"Wait, Who is Timothy McVeigh?”: Why localizing tech policies has to start with communities - Part 1: Research Presentation
"Wait, Who is Timothy McVeigh?”: Why localizing tech policies has to start with communities - Part 2: Panel Discussion
The full report is available here.