Meta apologises after auto-translate added ‘terrorist’ to biographies of Palestine supporters on Instagram

Meta, the parent company of Instagram, has issued an apology for a significant error in its auto-translation feature. This feature, designed to translate text from one language to another, mistakenly added the term 'Palestinian terrorist' to the biographies of some users, despite the original text containing no such language. The issue was brought to light by a TikTok user who demonstrated that his Instagram bio, which contained the English word 'Palestinian,' a Palestinian flag emoji, and the Arabic phrase 'alhamdulillah,' was incorrectly translated. Instagram's auto-translation software erroneously converted the entire line to 'Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom. ' However, when the English word 'Palestinian' and the flag emoji were removed, the software accurately translated the Arabic phrase to 'Thank God,' as intended by the user. Meta has since addressed the issue, stating that the problem has been resolved. The company expressed sincere apologies for the incident. There have been accusations from some Instagram users that Meta has been censoring pro-Palestine posts or 'shadow banning' accounts that produce content in support of Palestine. However, Meta has refuted these claims, attributing the issue to a bug that affected the visibility of all Stories that re-shared Reels and Feed posts. The company stated that the bug, which has since been fixed, impacted all accounts globally and was not related to the content's subject matter. Meta has yet to respond to requests for comment sent outside of regular business hours.