Snowden in English: What Russians read about on foreign websites

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Important events happening in Russia and the world are always
reflected on the Internet : in page views of news publications, in
search queries, in posts on social networks and microblogs. And even - although this is less
obvious - in the texts that we translate using specialized
online services. The corresponding study was conducted by Translate.ru specialists.

The modern Internet user strives to receive
information from various sources, including foreign publications and blogs,
without waiting for someone to translate this relevant information into Russian and
provide it with their own interpretation.
That is why
Internet users often resort to online translation services, such
as Translate.ru, to translate news,
blog posts, and articles from the Internet.

Translate.ru analysts studied
the texts translated using the service and found out which events worried
Internet users the most. The study was conducted from June 1 to
July 10 of this year. It is worth noting that the monthly audience of the site reaches 7
million people who make up to 100 million translations with a total volume of more than 10 billion
kilobytes. According to TNS, almost 80% of the Translate.Ru audience are adults
of active age (from 18 to 44 years old); 70% of them work, 24% study.

As Translate.ru analysts note,
the focus of users' attention is on everything related to studies, travel,
communication, online shopping, and gadgets.
News also occupies a significant place, among which stories from the lives of celebrities are usually noticeable, but there are periodic
bursts related to important political and socially significant
events.

In particular, in June-July of this year, the key stories
were the revelations of Edward Snowden, mass protests in Istanbul, the civil
war in Syria and the aggravation of the political situation in Egypt. The analysis was conducted on
50,000 random records for every two days during the study period.

Based on the data obtained, it is clear that the reflection of the news story in the translations is very clear in the situation with Edward Snowden

: his name first appeared in the press on June 9, and on the same day it
appeared in translations from English of news and forum posts. The name Snowden
is surrounded by words such as Hong Kong, government, intelligence,
Facebook, Twitter, asylum, PRISM (the name of the surveillance program), NSA
(National Security Agency), which reflects the main news stories.

The first peak of interest in Snowden occurred on June 23-25
​​— the days when he found himself at Sheremetyevo Airport, requested asylum, and the US demanded his extradition. And
then the number of translations from Russian began to grow: it is noticeable that users
from different countries are translating news from Russia . On July 7, new information appeared
about a request for political asylum in Latin American countries, and this caused
another increase in his mentions in translations.



The situation with the protests in Istanbul is more complicated. The fact is that Turkey
and Istanbul are always on the list of topics of interest to
Translate.Ru users. Firstly, Turkey is one of the popular holiday destinations, and
secondly, there is active personal correspondence between Russians and Turks, mainly
in the context of dating and flirting. Therefore, many different factors are superimposed on the results for the words "Turkey" and
"Istanbul".

To eliminate the influence of other
topics, an analysis was conducted on the words "Erdogan" and "Taksim". It is clear from them that the peak of
user interest occurred on June 3-4 and June 9-11; it was then that the protests
reached their climax, took place throughout Turkey, and
trade union strikes were organized throughout the country. Then, interest in the events either completely disappeared or
reappeared. A protracted political event without development and any acute
moments cannot hold the interest of users for long.



The civil war in Syria is also reflected quite accurately
in the translations on Translate.Ru. Users showed particular interest on June 5-8, 15-18, and
29-30. Apparently, this is a reaction to the news about the shelling of the Russian embassy on
June 4, the US statement about Assad's use of chemical weapons and, as a result, assistance
to the rebels on June 14-15, as well as Sergey Lavrov's denial of the closure of the Russian
embassy in Damascus on June 28. As we can see, it is not the events of the conflict themselves that are of interest
, but the participation of Russia or the US in them.



The reaction to the events in Egypt is similar to the situation with Turkey. Despite the tense political situation in the country,
user posts mostly concern tours, resorts, vacations in the country and personal correspondence . However, the increase in interest at the end of June and the beginning of July can be interpreted as political, since it was at this time that the situation in the country became very tense.




On June 28, mass clashes began in the country, and on July 3,
President Mohamed Morsi was removed from event planner email database list power. All this, with a delay
of about a day, corresponds to surges in user interest. As we can see,
online translators, along with search engines and social networks, can provide an objective
picture of changes in Internet users' interest in events in the country and in the world.



All this is quite consistent with the general trend: trust in
online publications and social networks has been growing in recent years . dataAccording to a recent
Levada Center poll, Russians are increasingly turning to the Internet to find
the information they need, follow the latest news, and understand what is happening in
the country and abroad. And, if we are to believe the data from Translate.ru analysts, many prefer to receive
information about world events directly “first-hand” — from foreign
Internet publications and blogs.