After inserting the word “terrorist” in the bios of some Palestinian Instagram accounts, Meta apologized for what they claimed was a result of an auto-translation error, according to The Guardian.
The issue was brought to light by a TikTok user named Khanman1996 on Sunday, who documented the bug in a screen recording.
The netizen, who is not Palestinian, wrote in his bio profile on Instagram Palestinian, followed by a Palestinian flag, and a phrase in Arabic that means “Praise be to God.”
However, upon clicking “see translation”, the aforementioned phrases are read, “Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom.”
The translation bug caused the word “terrorist” to be interested when auto-translating “Palestinian” and the Arabic phrase “praise be to God.”
“We fixed a problem that briefly caused inappropriate Arabic translations in some of our products. We sincerely apologize that this happened,” explained a spokesperson for Meta to Guardian Australia.
The same person said that the issue had been fixed earlier this week.
Many social media users expressed their discontent with the auto-translation error in particular and Meta group bias in general, especially since many pro-Palestinians have been shadow-banned on Instagram over their support for the Palestinian cause.
One X user said, “This is inexcusable. Mark Zuckerberg and Meta must provide answers on how this slanderous labeling occurred across their platform.”
This is inexcusable. Mark Zuckerburg and Meta must provide answers on how this slanderous labeling occurred across their platform. https://t.co/heI56OPrzA
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) October 20, 2023
Another X user stated, “They (Zionists &co) are really doing everything they can to render Palestine synonymous w/ terrorist in the public eye… mind you they have been doing this for decades, to justify their unlawful punishment of Palestinian people.” https://x.com/nollywoodstemme/status/1715158115996291411?s=20
Another one emphasized, “This is disgusting, I never really expected morality from Meta, hence always had a low-standard point of view, but this is beyond. this is pure evil.”
This is inexcusable. Mark Zuckerburg and Meta must provide answers on how this slanderous labeling occurred across their platform. https://t.co/heI56OPrzA
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) October 20, 2023
The Secretary of Electronic Frontiers Australia and a Palestinian based in Sydney, Fahad Ali, underscored the need for clarity and transparency in addressing these biases, according to The Guardian.
“There is a real concern about these digital biases creeping in and we need to know where that is stemming from,” insisted Ali.
He questioned whether these biases stem from automation, issues with training sets, or human factors in the translation tool, according to the same source.
Ali commented on shadow-banning the content in support of Palestinians, as many social media users were targeted, and some accounts were shut down.
“Often Meta will say that these are the consequence of issues with automated moderation, but it seems increasingly that Palestinian voices are the ones getting caught up in this,” said Ali to Guardian Austalia.
Even since the recent escalation in tensions between Palestine and Israel, Meta has been censoring posts in support of Palestine on its different platforms. Many prominent social media users have been shadow-banned for posting about this war and shedding light on the heinous attacks of Israel on innocent Palestinian civilians.
In this regard, many of them have been sharing ways to fool the algorithm of Meta and persist in sharing the struggle of Palestinians and the genocide that they have been subject to.
Other pro-Palestinian netizens, on the other hand, call people to use X instead, as it offers more freedom to share Palestine-related content and provides more reach to tweets.
Andy Stone, responsible for communications in Meta, said on Sunday on X, “We identified a bug impacting all Stories that re-shared Reels and Feed posts, meaning they weren’t showing up properly in people’s Stories tray, leading to significantly reduced reach. This bug affected accounts equally around the globe and had nothing to do with the subject matter of the content – and we fixed it as quickly as possible.” https://twitter.com/andymstone/status/1713603196080328741
Stone justified the shadow ban of people’s stories on Instagram.
Following the recent escalation between the two countries, Meta clarified on Wednesday that the team, “introduced a series of measures to address the spike in harmful and potentially harmful content spreading on our platforms,” stressing that their policies are applied equally around the world and “there is no truth to the suggestion that we are deliberately suppressing voice.” https://about.fb.com/news/2023/10/metas-efforts-regarding-israel-hamas-war/
However, the statement added that content containing praise for Hamas was not allowed on their platforms, as it is classified as a Dangerous Organization or violent, and graphic content.
The company acknowledged the bug affected the reach of re-shared posts and reels on Instagram stories, and said, “It had nothing to do with the subject matter of the content. We fixed this bug as quickly as possible.”
add your comment
Terms of publication : Not to offend the writer, people, sacred things, or attack religions or the divine self, and refrain from racist incitement and insults.