Meta Apologises for Auto-Translation Error That Falsely Announced Indian Politician’s Death
Meta has issued a public apology after an auto-translation error on its Instagram platform incorrectly announced the death of Siddaramaiah, the Chief Minister of Karnataka, India. The tech firm confirmed on Thursday that the glitch has now been fixed.
The confusion began when Siddaramaiah posted a tribute in Kannada, the official language of Karnataka, mourning the passing of veteran Indian actress B. Saroja Devi. However, Instagram’s auto-translation feature wrongly interpreted the post, stating that Siddaramaiah himself had died.
According to a report by News18, the flawed English 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.”
Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, responded to the backlash, saying in a statement to the Press Trust of India: “We fixed an issue that briefly caused this inaccurate Kannada translation. We apologize that this happened.”
But the incident sparked immediate concern from Siddaramaiah and his office, who criticized the tech company’s tools as unreliable and potentially harmful. In a statement shared across his social media platforms, the Chief Minister called the mistranslation “dangerous” and said such errors from global tech platforms could erode public trust.
His office followed up with an official email to Meta titled “Urgent Request to Address Faulty Auto-Translation of Kannada Content on Meta Platforms.” In it, the government expressed “serious concern” over the accuracy of Meta’s machine translation tools and called for the temporary suspension of auto-translation for Kannada-language posts until improvements are made.
“This poses a significant risk, especially when public communications, official statements, or important messages from the Chief Minister and the Government are incorrectly translated,” the email read. “Such misrepresentations due to flawed translation mechanisms are unacceptable.”
The email also urged Meta to collaborate with Kannada language experts to enhance translation reliability for its platforms.
As of Friday, a revised version of the translated Instagram post still appeared inaccurate, stating: “The multilingual star, senior actress B Sarojadevi who passed away yesterday, paid his last respects.” CNN has contacted both Meta and Siddaramaiah’s office for further clarification.
The episode adds to a growing list of translation and moderation issues plaguing major tech platforms. It also follows an earlier incident in which Meta apologised for graphic video content shown to some Instagram users due to a technical glitch.
