By In a recent incident, Instagram, owned by Meta, found itself in hot water after an offensive translation bug caused uproar among Palestinian users.
The issue, initially discovered by 404media, involved the word “terrorist” being inserted into the profile bios of some Palestinian Instagram users. Instagram attributed this error to an unintended bug in their auto-translation feature.
The glitch specifically affected users who had the word “Palestinian” written in English on their profile, featured the Palestinian flag emoji, and included the Arabic word “Alhamdulillah.” When auto-translated to English, the phrase was incorrectly transformed into: “Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom.”
TikTok user YtKingKhan drew attention to this problem, highlighting that different combinations still resulted in the word “terrorist” in the translation.
The Instagram community was quick to express their outrage at this translation mishap. Users demanded to know how such an offensive translation could make it into production, with some expressing disbelief at the situation.
However, Instagram acted promptly and resolved the issue, with the auto-translation now correctly reading, “Thank God.”
A spokesperson for Meta extended an apology, stating that the problem had been addressed and rectified earlier that week. They sincerely apologized for the incident.
Despite the resolution, questions lingered about the transparency of Meta’s processes. Fahad Ali, the secretary of Electronic Frontiers Australia and a Palestinian residing in Sydney emphasized the need for more clarity regarding the origin of these digital biases.
He pointed out that it remains uncertain whether these issues stem from automation, training data, or human factors.
Meanwhile, a former Facebook employee revealed that this incident had pushed many both within and outside the company to the edge.
This incident comes in the midst of allegations against Meta for censoring posts in support of Palestine since the Israel-Hamas conflict began. Users have claimed that Meta has been shadow-banning accounts that support Palestine or demoting their content, reducing its visibility to others.
Meta, in response, stated in a blog post that they have implemented new measures to address the rise in harmful content on their platforms since the conflict’s onset. They denied suppressing anyone’s voice and clarified that the bug this week affected not only posts related to Israel and Gaza.
Despite Meta’s reassurances, concerns about moderation policies and transparency remain. Users, particularly Palestinians, have expressed frustration over their accounts being targeted or shut down, often attributing these actions to automated moderation issues.
Meta should, according to critics, provide greater transparency about where they draw the line in content moderation to ensure the fair treatment of all voices on their platforms.
In an age where social media plays a pivotal role in shaping public discourse, such incidents highlight the importance of responsible and transparent content moderation to avoid the unintentional spread of offensive content.
