‘Issue Fixed…': Meta Apologises For ‘Siddaramaiah Is Dead' Kannada Translation Blunder
After Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah slammed social media platform Facebook for a translation blunder and raised concerns over faulty auto-translation of Kannada content on its platforms, its parent company Meta has apologised for the inaccurate translation and claimed to have fixed the issue.
'We fixed an issue that briefly caused this inaccurate Kannada translation. We apologize that this happened," a Meta spokesperson said as quoted by news agency PTI.
The apology came after a translation blunder from Meta's automatic translation entirely changed the meaning of a post from the Karnataka Chief Minister's Office (CMO) on Facebook.
The issue came into limelight when the post written in Kannada to mourn the demise of veteran actor B Saroj Devi, was wrongly translated into English.
'Chief Minister Siddaramaiah passed away yesterday multilingual star, senior actress B. Took darshan of Sarojadevi's earthly body and paid his last respects," the mistranslation read.
Siddaramaiah took note of the faulty translation post and asked Meta to stop its Kannada auto-translation.
He said that social media platforms must act responsibly, especially when dealing with official communication, and cautioned citizens to be aware that translations displayed on these platforms are often inaccurate.
'Faulty auto-translation of Kannada content on Meta platforms is distorting facts and misleading users. This is especially dangerous when it comes to official communication. My media advisor has formally written to Meta urging immediate correction," Siddaramaiah posted on X.
In an email sent to Meta on July 16, the chief minister's media advisor, K V Prabhakar, raised serious concerns on behalf of the CM regarding the automatic translation of Kannada content on Facebook and Instagram.
The Karnataka government has asked Meta to temporarily suspend the auto-translation feature for Kannada content until translation accuracy is reliably improved.
'We have noted with concern that the auto-translation from Kannada to English is frequently inaccurate and, in some cases, grossly misleading," it said.
'This poses a significant risk, especially when public communications, official statements, or important messages from the Chief Minister are incorrectly translated… Many may not realise that what they are reading is an automated translation rather than the original message," the letter added.
In the case of Kannada auto-translation, Meta's AI machine translation model provided a machine translation error which caused inaccurate Kannada translations in Facebook– which the company claims to have been fixed now.
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