Meta apologizes after auto-translation mistakenly announces Indian state chief minister’s death

Meta, the tech powerhouse, has issued an apology following a serious misstep involving its auto-translation feature, which erroneously declared the death of Siddaramaiah, the chief minister of Karnataka, India. The confusion arose when Siddaramaiah shared a tribute to the late actress B. Saroja Devi on Instagram in Kannada. Unfortunately, Meta’s translation tool misinterpreted this message, suggesting that the chief minister himself had passed away. The misleading translation claimed, "Chief Minister Siddaramaiah passed away yesterday," which sparked outrage. A spokesperson for Meta confirmed the issue had been resolved, stating, "We fixed an issue that briefly caused this inaccurate Kannada translation. We apologize that this happened." In response to the incident, Siddaramaiah criticized the translation tool as "dangerous" in posts on Facebook and X, emphasizing that such oversights from technology companies can undermine public trust and understanding. His office sent an urgent email to Meta expressing grave concerns about the translation errors, particularly emphasizing the need for the auto-translation feature to be temporarily suspended until its accuracy improves. The email highlighted the frequency of inaccurate translations from Kannada to English and the potential risks involved, especially concerning public communications and official statements. With a significant number of users relying on these translations, the chief minister's office stressed that such errors could lead to severe misunderstandings. As of the latest update, the auto-translation still misrepresented Siddaramaiah's original message, indicating that improvements are still necessary. Meta's miscalculation follows a previous incident where the company faced scrutiny for a technical error that exposed graphic content to users, illustrating ongoing challenges with content moderation and translation accuracy on its platforms.