Meta apologises after auto-translate added ‘terrorist’ to biographies of Palestine supporters on Instagram
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Meta apologises after auto-translate added ‘terrorist’ to biographies of Palestine supporters on Instagram
Meta has apologised for Instagram’s auto-translation feature adding “Palestinian terrorist” to the biographies of some users, despite the original descriptions containing no such wording.
On Monday, a TikTokker showed that his Instagram bio had a line that contained three elements – “Palestinian” in English, a Palestinian flag emoji, and the Arabic phrase “alhamdulillah.”
Instagram’s auto-translation software converted the entire line to “Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom,” along with the Palestinian flag emoji, according to the video.
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However, when the English word “Palestinian” and the flag emoji were removed, the software more accurately translated the Arabic phrase to “Thank God,” as intended by the TikTokker.
In a statement to several outlets, a Meta spokesperson said the issue had been fixed.
“We fixed a problem that briefly caused inappropriate Arabic translations in some of our products. We sincerely apologise that this happened,” the spokesperson said.
Some Instagram users have been accusing Meta of censoring pro-Palestine posts or “shadow banning” accounts that produced content supporting Palestine.
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In a statement, the company said this was caused by a bug.
“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,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote on X.
Stone wrote that the bug affected all accounts around the world, and had “nothing to do with the subject matter of the content.”
The bug has since been fixed, Stone added.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.
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