Meta auto-translator falsely reports Karnataka CM's death in condolence post
Meta's auto-translation feature incorrectly translated a Kannada condolence post by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah about a deceased actress, falsely stating that the chief minister himself had died. Meta apologised and said it fixed the error, but the chief minister called for suspension of the Kannada translation feature until accuracy improves.
What happened
On Tuesday, 16 July 2025, Karnataka Chief Minister S. Siddaramaiah posted a condolence message in Kannada on Facebook and Instagram mourning the death of veteran actress B Sarojadevi. When Meta's auto-translation tool converted the post to English, it incorrectly stated that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had 'passed away' instead of the actress.
Reported impact
Siddaramaiah criticised Meta's auto-translate feature, accusing it of 'distorting facts' and 'misleading users', and warned that such mistranslations were especially dangerous in the context of official communication. The Chief Minister's media adviser KV Prabhakar formally requested that Meta suspend Kannada auto-translation until its accuracy improves and urged the company to work with Kannada language experts.
Governance controls
On Thursday, 18 July 2025, a Meta spokesperson told Press Trust of India that the platform had 'fixed an issue that briefly caused this inaccurate Kannada translation' and apologised for the error. Meta has not commented on whether it would suspend Kannada translations until its accuracy improves.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
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