After an auto-translated post declares the India minister "dead," Meta apologizes.

 

The chief minister of the southern Indian state of Karnataka is Siddaramaiah. According to the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency, Meta has apologized after a social media post by an Indian chief minister was mistranslated on some of its platforms, giving the impression that he had died. Siddaramaiah, the chief minister of Karnataka, expressed his condolences for the actress's passing on Facebook and Instagram on Tuesday in the language of Kannada. However, when the posts were automatically translated into English, they stated Mr. Siddaramaiah had "passed away" in error. According to a spokesperson for Meta, the platform had "fixed an issue that briefly caused this inaccurate Kannada translation" on Thursday, according to PTI. The spokesperson went on to say, "We apologize that this occurred." The original post showing him paying tribute to veteran actress B Saroja Devi was wrongly translated to say he had died.

 Mr. Siddaramaiah criticized Meta's auto-translate feature for Kannada following the error, claiming that it was "distorting facts" and "misleading users." In the context of official communication, such misinterpretations were especially dangerous, he warned. KV Prabhakar, Siddaramaiah's media advisor, wrote to Meta on Thursday to request that the translation be corrected and that Kannada auto-translation be temporarily suspended until its accuracy is improved. Additionally, he urged the business to collaborate with Kannada language experts to avoid errors like these. On Friday, the BBC looked over Mr. Siddaramaiah's post and found the following translation in English: "The senior actress B Sarojadevi, a multilingual star, who passed away yesterday, paid his last respects." Meta hasn't said whether it will stop translating Kannada until its accuracy improves.