BENGALURU— Social media giant Meta has issued an apology after its automatic translation tool mistakenly suggested that Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had passed away. The error occurred while translating a condolence message originally written in Kannada and posted by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) on Facebook.
On Tuesday, CM Siddaramaiah had shared a condolence post in Kannada on both Facebook and Instagram, mourning the death of veteran Indian actress B. Saroja Devi. However, the English auto-translation generated by Meta’s tool incorrectly read:
“Chief Minister Siddaramaiah passed away yesterday multilingual star, senior actress B. Took darshan of Saroja Devi’s earthly body and paid his last respects.”
The mistranslation, produced by Meta’s AI-powered tools used across Facebook and Instagram, sparked concern over the reliability of machine-generated translations for public and official communications.
Meta acknowledged the error and stated that it has since corrected the issue affecting Kannada translations on Facebook, according to a statement from the Chief Minister’s Office.
Taking to social media on Thursday, CM Siddaramaiah criticized the platform’s faulty translation tools:
“Faulty auto-translation of Kannada content on Meta platforms is distorting facts and misleading users. This is especially dangerous when it comes to official communications.”
He noted that Facebook often displays auto-translated versions of posts by default based on users’ language settings, while the original Kannada version remains available under a “See original” option. Content creators, however, have no control over how translations appear in users’ feeds.
Siddaramaiah further revealed that his Media Advisor, K.V. Prabhakar, has formally written to Meta, urging immediate corrective action.
“Social media platforms must act responsibly. I caution citizens to be aware that translations shown are often inaccurate. Such negligence by tech giants can harm public understanding and trust,” the Chief Minister stated.
In its apology, Meta confirmed that the technical issue had been resolved and emphasized its commitment to improving translation accuracy on its platforms. (Source: IANS)
