In a huge gaffe, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was declared ‘dead’ by Meta’s tool while translating his Facebook post. A Meta spokesperson made an apology soon after the CM flagged the auto-faulty translation.
Siddaramaiah’s Reaction
Taking his official X handle, Siddaramaiah wrote, “Faulty auto-translation of Kannada content on @Metaplatforms is distorting facts & misleading users. This is especially dangerous when it comes to official communications. My Media Advisor Shri K V Prabhakar has formally written to Meta urging immediate correction.”
“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 & trust,” the CM added.
In the original post Siddaramaiah condoled the death of actor B Saroja Devi, which was written in the Kannada language. But the erroneous translation read, “Chief Minister Siddaramaiah passed away yesterday multilingual star, senior actress B. Took darshan of Sarojadevi’s earthly body and paid his last respects.”
To this, the CM became quite upset and asked the platform to exercise caution and act responsibly, apprising that a formal complaint was lodged with Meta on the issue.
Meta Apologies
News agency PTI quoted a Meta Spokesperson apologised saying, “We fixed an issue that briefly caused this inaccurate Kannada translation. We apologize that this happened.”
The CM’s media advisor, KV Prabhakar, formally raised significant concerns with Meta on July 16 over the automatic faulty translation of Kannada content on social media platforms. He also urged the company to temporarily disable the auto-translation feature for Kannada until its accuracy was improved.
