Instagram lands in controversy as Palestinians' bio adds 'terrorists' on translation

Meta landed itself in a huge controversy after what it dubbed a bug resulted in online mayhem wherein the word "terrorists” was inserted into the profile bios of some Palestinians on the social media platform Instagram, media reports said adding that the tech giant has since issued an apology.

Those who were impacted by the so-called bug were those who had the English word "Palestinian" written on their profiles, along with the Palestinian flag emoji and the word “alhamdulillah” written in Arabic.

The auto-translation option when used shows the text, “Praise be to god, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom.”

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The issue gained the widespread attention of many users online who went on to say that it is a way of banning Palestinian content, especially because of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

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TikTok user YtKingKhan suggested that even after using a different combination, the translation still leads to displaying the word “terrorist”.

"Shadow-banning is just one of the many ways in which we have seen Palestinian content silenced and censored over the last week," one user said.

“Please tell me this is a joke bc I cannot comprehend it I’m out of words,” another user said.

This comes as the European Union continues to demand Meta and TikTok to chart out measures to stop disinformation being propagated in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war

Instagram resolves issue

Meta has apologised and resolved the issue. The auto-translation now reportedly reads, “Thank God”.

Guardian while quoting a spokesperson for Meta said, “We fixed a problem that briefly caused inappropriate Arabic translations in some of our products. We sincerely apologise that this happened."

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Fahad Ali, the secretary of Electronic Frontiers Australia and a Palestinian based in Sydney, said, “There is a real concern about these digital biases creeping in and we need to know where that is stemming from."

“Is it stemming from the level of automation? Is it stemming from an issue with a training set? Is it stemming from the human factor in these tools? There is no clarity on that."

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“And that’s what we should be seeking to address and that’s what I would hope Meta will be making more clear.”

(With inputs from agencies)

Disclaimer: WION takes utmost care to accurately and responsibly report ongoing developments on the Israel-Palestine conflict after the Hamas attacks. However, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.

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