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Facebook Translation Error Leads to the Arrest of Palestinian Man

21/11/2017 Latest News

A mistranslation by Facebook’s software has led to the arrest of a Palestinian man. His crime? Simply posting “good morning” in Arabic. In the offending post, the man is pictured at the construction site where he works, in a settlement in the West Bank, clutching a cigarette and cup of coffee. The error, which saw the caption on the post translated into Hebrew as “attack them”, occurred when Facebook’s own proprietary software transliterated the Arabic script into something resembling the word “to hurt”.

Judea and Samaria District police were notified of the post and became suspicious, given the location the post was made, close to the Israeli capital.  The fact the man was pictured next to a bulldozer also aroused suspicion, as construction vehicles have been used in hit and run terror attacks. According to Gizmodo, Israel Defence Forces make use of algorithms to monitor the social media accounts of Palestinians as a counter terror measure, which may have brought the offending post to their attention.

Facebook quickly apologised for the incident, attributing it to an error in its translation systems – which rely on the social network’s machine-learning software. The website previously used a Microsoft machine translation software, but has been using its own proprietary system since 2016. They stressed, that although the AI is constantly being improved, mistakes may still occur from time to time.  However, Haaretz observed that the mistaken arrest could equally have been prevented by an Arabic-speaking police officer checking the post prior to the arrest being made. After the police realised their mistake, they promptly released the man, admitting subsequently that the post had simply stated “this morning”.

Sources:

http://www.newsweek.com/palestinian-arrested-israel-police-after-facebook-mistranslation-692464

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.818437

https://gizmodo.com/palestinian-man-arrested-after-facebook-auto-translates-1819782902

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