Facebook has apologized after a Palestinian man was arrested by Israeli police for a post saying “good morning” that its automatic-translation service erroneously translated as “attack them” in Hebrew and “hurt them” in English.
The man is a construction worker near Jerusalem & posted a photo of himself last week leaning against a bulldozer with the caption which translates as “good morning.”
Police arrested the man after they were notified of the post and were suspicious he was planning a vehicle attack using the bulldozer. He was released hours later after police realized the mistake.
Facebook’s translations are entirely powered by AI, and around 4.5 billion translations are made each day across the social network.
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