A new website hopes to foster tolerance between east and west by translating Arabic news articles into English, and vice versa.

Meedan.net, operating out of San Francisco, will use automatic translation along with a team of 30 human translators to provide daily stories.

"There is a tremendous amount of media attention focused on the Middle East, but for the most part we're looking at those stories through the prism of western news agencies," Chief Executive Ed Bice told The Guardian (London). "We don't have a good way of seeing the media that's being written in Arabic and represents the way the region is understanding these events itself."

He added that the site would not be reporting upon controversial subjects, in the hope that it will gain as wide an audience as possible.

"We are respectful of the many and changing boundaries that define what can be spoken about when and where in the region," said Bice.

As the internet grows to accommodate new languages and alphabets, there are fears of "splinternets," according to Meedan's George Weyman. He predicts a new wave of technology and schemes to overcome the language barrier.

He told The Guardian that Meedan was "improving the quality of machine translation into Arabic. Over time, we should be able to translate more things, better. It's very exciting to see that happen – we're plowing a furrow that we hope will benefit many other cross-language projects on the web."

Machines will provide the initial translations, to be refined by human translators.

Scott Maniquet of The National Post (Toronto) mocked the website's aim of tolerance, saying Meedan.net was perfect for anyone with "the feeling that this whole Middle East thing could be straightened out if only there were no language barriers."

20 February 2010