Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms in the world, with over 2.8 billion monthly active users as of Q4 2021. With users from all around the globe, supporting different languages is crucial for Facebook. This raises the question – does Facebook use Google Translate to power translations on its platform?
The Need for Translation at Facebook’s Scale
With billions of users worldwide, Facebook has the need to translate its platform into multiple languages. Some key facts about Facebook’s need for translation include:
- Facebook supports over 100 different languages on its platform and apps.
- More than 98% of Facebook’s DAUs (daily active users) are outside of the US and Canada as of Q4 2021.
- There are over 300 million native Arabic speakers on Facebook as of 2018.
- Over 65 million businesses globally use Facebook Pages to connect with customers.
Supporting this global, multilingual user base requires translation at massive scale. Facebook likely translates billions of pieces of content daily across posts, comments, ads and more. Doing this all in-house would be enormously expensive.
Does Facebook Use Google Translate?
So does Facebook use Google Translate to help meet its translation needs? The short answer is no – Facebook does not use Google Translate for translations on its platform and apps. Instead, Facebook has invested in building its own translation infrastructure and systems.
Facebook uses a combination of human translators and AI/machine translation technology developed in-house. Key facts about Facebook’s translation capabilities:
- Facebook has over 300 localization experts on staff translating content.
- They have developed an AI translation system called FAIR (Facebook AI Research).
- FAIR is a neural machine translation system trained on Facebook-specific data.
- The FAIR system translates across 20 different languages.
- Facebook also utilizes contracted translation vendors to supplement its needs.
Facebook cites several reasons for not utilizing Google Translate:
- Google Translate isn’t customized for Facebook’s unique content/data.
- Using Google Translate would give data directly to a competitor.
- Facebook has the resources to develop customized AI translation tools.
- Control over translations is needed to ensure quality and accuracy.
Facebook’s Machine Translation System
A key component of Facebook’s translation capabilities is its proprietary machine translation system FAIR. Some key facts about FAIR:
- FAIR launched in 2017.
- It utilizes neural machine learning techniques.
- The system was trained on Facebook-specific data like posts, comments, etc.
- FAIR translates 2.5 billion translations daily as of 2018.
- The translation error rate has decreased by 35-55% compared to previous systems.
- FAIR is over 20% more accurate than competitor systems in blind testing.
The FAIR research paper provides additional technical details on the custom models and techniques used. However, the core advantage emphasized is the training data. By training the AI exclusively on Facebook content and data, it performs better than generalized systems.
How Facebook Combines AI and Human Translations
Facebook takes a hybrid approach to translations by combining AI with human expert translators:
- The FAIR AI system handles the bulk of basic translations.
- Human translators focus on reviewing and correcting AI output.
- Humans also handle more nuanced content like jokes or current events.
- Translators help improve and reinforce the AI models.
- Facebook has 300+ expert linguists on staff for core languages.
- They also contract thousands of professional freelancers.
This human + AI approach allows Facebook to scale translations across billions of pieces of content daily. The AI does the heavy lifting on basic translations, while human experts ensure quality, accuracy, and cultural appropriateness.
How Facebook Manages Translations
Facebook has translation management processes in place to enable translations at scale:
- Translations are centralized through Facebook’s Internationalization Engineering team.
- They develop internal software and tools for translators.
- Content is programmatically identified and routed to translators.
- Translators focus on the 20 highest priority languages.
- Translations are distributed across global offices to utilize time zone differences.
By centralizing and closely managing translations, Facebook can translate content quickly and efficiently around the world in supported languages.
Examples of Facebook Translation Use Cases
Facebook utilizes translations to support users globally across many different use cases:
- User posts and comments – Billions of user posts and comments are translated daily.
- Ads – Ad language is translated to target users in their native language.
- Page information – Page names, descriptions and categories are translated.
- Help Center – Help Center articles are available in 40+ languages.
- Settings – App and account settings like privacy policies are translated.
- Notifications – Various notifications and messages are translated for users.
The end goal is to provide a natively localized experience in the user’s language across Facebook’s services.
Pros and Cons of Facebook’s Approach
Some pros of Facebook’s translation approach include:
- Customized translation quality for Facebook’s unique data.
- No dependence on third-party vendor lock-in.
- Direct control over translation quality and management.
- Scaling capabilities using AI translation.
- Preserves user data privacy and security.
Some potential downsides:
- High upfront investment to develop translation systems.
- Costs of maintaining sizable linguist workforce.
- AI systems require extensive data to train and improve.
- Translations limited to supported high priority languages.
Overall, Facebook’s approach allows it to scale translations immensely while controlling quality, privacy and costs. But it requires continued investment and development to expand language coverage.
Key Takeaways on Facebook’s Use of Translation
Some key points on how Facebook handles translation across its platform:
- Facebook does not use Google Translate or other third-party translation services.
- They’ve developed a customized AI translation system called FAIR.
- Human linguists and contracted translators supplement the AI.
- Translations systems are optimized exclusively for Facebook data.
- A hybrid approach balances cost, quality and speed.
- Hundreds of experts work to centralize and optimize translations.
Facebook’s massive investments in translation allow it to support a diverse, global user base. Driven by a customized AI system paired with human expertise, Facebook can translate its platform into 100+ languages at scale.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Facebook does not use Google Translate for its platform translations. Instead, it has invested heavily in developing proprietary AI translation models like FAIR specifically trained on Facebook data. This customized approach, combined with human expert translators, gives Facebook control over translation quality and cost. While expensive to develop, Facebook’s translation infrastructure powers its capability to connect billions of global users daily in their native languages.