Meta has blamed a bug in auto-translation and apologised for inserting the word “terrorist” into the profile of Palestinian Instagram users, The Guardian reported.
The issue was highlighted in a video by an Instagram user who had written in his bio that he was Palestinian, followed by a Palestinian flag and the word “Alhamdulillah” in Arabic.
However, upon clicking “see translation”, viewers were given an English translation that read: “Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom”.
According to the user, he was not Palestinian himself but had tested the error out after his Palestinian friend told him about it.
Instagram resolved the issue after the video surfaced. The auto-translation now reads: “Thank God”. A spokesperson for Meta told Guardian Australia that the issue had been fixed earlier this week.
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“We fixed a problem that briefly caused inappropriate Arabic translations in some of our products. We sincerely apologise that this happened,” the spokesperson said.
The social media platform is also being accused of shadow-banning accounts that extend support to the Palestinians.
Since the Israel-Hamas war began, Meta has been accused of censoring posts in support of Palestine on its platforms, saying that Meta had been demoting their content.
Meta has said that new measures had been brought in since the Israel-Hamas war began to “address the spike in harmful and potentially harmful content spreading on our platforms” and that there was no truth to the suggestion the company is suppressing anyone’s voice.
