Meta apologises for translation glitch that pronounced Indian minister 'dead': Times of India
Chief Minister of India's Karnataka Siddaramaiah posted a message on Tuesday in Kannada language to mourn B. Saroja Devi, a veteran Indian actress who passed away on Monday after a career that saw her act in about 200 films over seven decades.
However, when these posts were auto-translated into English, they mistakenly said that Siddaramaiah, not the actress, had "passed away".
The Indian politician complained and said that his media advisor wrote to Meta who acknowledged the glitch, apologised, and claimed to have fixed the issue.
"We fixed an issue that briefly caused this inaccurate Kannada translation. we apologise that this happened," a Meta spokesperson was cited by PTI as saying.
"I request everyone not to spread confusion or misinformation based on an error that did not originate from us. It is time Meta puts in place better and more responsible translation systems," Siddaramaiah said on X.
An old version of the auto-translation showed the post as saying: "Chief Minister Siddaramaiah passed away yesterday, multilingual star, senior actress B."
Khaleej Times used the auto translation tool to translate the post on Saturday and it showed a correct translation. It now reads: "Multilingual star, senior actress B passed away yesterday in Bangalore". Take a look:
Kannada is a Dravidian language spoken primarily in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and the official language of Karnataka.
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