'Distorting Facts & Misleading Users...'—Why Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah Is Slamming Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Platforms?

The Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah on Thursday accused Meta Platforms of faulty-auto-translation of Kannada content on Facebook and Instagram, saying that it is "distorting facts and misleading users".

What Did The Minister Say?

The Karnataka CM's media advisor, KV Prabhakar has written a formal letter to the company urging them to use corrective measures immediately.

KV Prabhakar wrote, "We have noted with concern that the auto-translation from Kannada to English is frequently inaccurate and, in some cases, grossly misleading."

"This poses a significant risk, especially when public communication, official statements, or important messages from the chief minister and the government are incorrectly translated. It can lead to misinterpretation among users, many of whom may not realise that what they are reading is an automated and faulty translation rather than the original message," he added.

According to Siddaramaiah, social media platforms need to act responsibly, especially when dealing with official communication, and cautioned citizens to be aware that translations displayed on these platforms are often inaccurate.

"Faulty auto-translation of Kannada content on Meta platforms is distorting facts and misleading users. This is especially dangerous when it comes to official communication. My media advisor has formally written to Meta urging immediate correction," Siddaramaiah wrote in a post on X.

"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 and trust," he added.

Prabhakar further urged Meta to temporarily suspend the auto-translation feature for Kannada content until translation accuracy is reliably improved.

Meta issues statement 

After the issue was highlighted by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Meta issued a statement saying, "We fixed an issue that briefly caused this inaccurate Kannada translation. We apologise that this
happened."

The technology giant further shared more details on the matter saying, “Machine translations are shown to users in various instances on Facebook and Instagram, including public biographical info and specific pieces of content. AI models, in this case our machine translation model provided a machine translation error which caused inaccurate Kannada translations in Facebook.”

“⁠We implemented a fix to ensure greater accuracy. We have provided machine translation on Facebook and Instagram for years and we are continuously gathering feedback in order to improve the technology and help the machine translation model learn to generate more accurate information,” Meta added.

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