Incident 72: Facebook translates 'good morning' into 'attack them', leading to arrest

Description: Facebook's automatic language translation software incorrectly translated an Arabic post saying "Good morning" into Hebrew saying "hurt them," leading to the arrest of a Palestinian man in Beitar Illit, Israel.

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Incident Stats

Incident ID
72
Report Count
26
Incident Date
2017-10-17
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam

CSETv0 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Full Description

Facebook's automatic language translation software incorrectly translated an Arabic post saying "Good morning" into Hebrew saying "hurt them," leading to the arrest of a Palestinian man in Beitar Illit, Israel. The post was not read by any Arabic-speaking officers before the arrest was made. The man was posted the words along with a picture of him leaning on a bulldozer, which are sometimes used in terrorist attacks, therefore the conclusion made he was inciting violence. Facebook's automatic language translation software can translate 40 languages in 1,800 directions, and posts the translation instead of the original when confident the translation is correct.

Short Description

Facebook's automatic language translation software incorrectly translated an Arabic post saying "Good morning" into Hebrew saying "hurt them," leading to the arrest of a Palestinian man in Beitar Illit, Israel.

Severity

Moderate

Harm Type

Psychological harm, Harm to civil liberties

AI System Description

Facebook's automatic language translation software that can translate 40 languages in 1,800 directions

System Developer

Facebook

Sector of Deployment

Information and communication

Relevant AI functions

Perception, Cognition, Action

AI Techniques

natural language processing

AI Applications

language translation

Location

Beitar Illit, Israel

Named Entities

Israeli Police, Facebook, Beitar Illit, Israel

Technology Purveyor

Facebook

Beginning Date

2017-10-15

Ending Date

2017-10-15

Near Miss

Harm caused

Intent

Accident

Lives Lost

No

Data Inputs

User posts/input

GMF Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Known AI Goal

Translation

Known AI Technology

Convolutional Neural Network, Recurrent Neural Network, Distributional Learning

Potential AI Technology

Intermediate modeling, Classification, Multimodal Learning, Image Classification

Known AI Technical Failure

Dataset Imbalance, Distributional Bias

Potential AI Technical Failure

Generalization Failure

CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Harm Distribution Basis

none

Sector of Deployment

information and communication

privacyinternational.org · 2017

A mistake in Facebook's machine translation service led to the arrest and questioning of a Palestinian man by Israeli police. The man, a construction worker on the West Bank, posted a picture of himself leaning against a bulldozer like thos…

Israeli police arrest Palestinian over Facebook post
dailymail.co.uk · 2017

Israeli police mistakenly arrested a Palestinian who posted 'good morning' in Arabic online which Facebook wrongly translated as 'attack them'.

The man uploaded a picture of himself leaning against a bulldozer at the Israeli settlement of B…

Israel Arrests Palestinian Because Facebook Translated 'Good Morning' to 'Attack Them'
haaretz.com · 2017

The Israel Police mistakenly arrested a Palestinian worker last week because they relied on automatic translation software to translate a post he wrote on his Facebook page. The Palestinian was arrested after writing “good morning,” which w…

Palestinian arrested by Israeli police after Facebook mistranslated his 'good morning' post
ibtimes.co.uk · 2017

A Palestinian man in the West Bank was arrested by Israeli police after he wrote "good morning" in Arabic in a Facebook post that was mistranslated by the company's automatic translation software. Construction worker Halawim Halawi had repo…

Man arrested because of a Facebook mistranslation
alphr.com · 2017

A Palestinian man was arrested by Israeli police last week, after a post he left on Facebook saying "good morning" in Arabic was taken to meaning "attack them" in Hebrew.

A spokeswoman for the Israel Police’s West Bank district confirmed to…

postcourier.com.pg · 2017

Following a goof up by Facebook, a Palestinian man was arrested by the Israeli police for posting ‘Good Morning’ on the social media site.

According to reports, the man, a construction worker said “Good Morning” in Arabic in Facebook post, …

Israel police mistakenly arrest Palestinian man for writing ‘good morning’ on Facebook
independent.co.uk · 2017

A Palestinian man who posted “good morning” in Arabic on Facebook was arrested after Israeli police mistakenly translated his message as “attack them”.

The man, who has not been named, posted a picture of himself working on a construction s…

Facebook translates 'good morning' into 'attack them', leading to arrest
theguardian.com · 2017

Palestinian man questioned by Israeli police after embarrassing mistranslation of caption under photo of him leaning against bulldozer

Facebook has apologised after an error in its machine-translation service saw Israeli police arrest a Pal…

Man Arrested After Facebook Translates Turns Greeting Into Threat
digitaltrends.com · 2017

Share

Facebook’s auto-translate feature allows users to connect beyond language barriers but one incorrect translation of a simple “good morning” proved to be a bit of a disaster for one Palestinian man. When the construction worker posted …

Facebook apologizes after wrong translation sees Palestinian man arrested for posting ‘good morning’
theverge.com · 2017

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, reports Isr…

Palestinian Man Arrested After Facebook Auto-Translates 'Good Morning' As 'Attack Them'
gizmodo.com.au · 2017

A Palestinian construction worker was arrested by Israeli police after Facebook incorrectly translated the text of one of his posts. Haaretz reports that the man uploaded a picture from his job at a construction site with the text "good mor…

swordandscale.com · 2017

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it only took two of them for a Palestinian man to find himself being placed under arrest after a Facebook translation blunder.

A construction worker for the West Bank settlement of Beitar Il…

Facebook's auto translation AI fail leads to a nightmare for a Palestinian man
mashable.com · 2017

Bad translations often make good comedy, but in the case of this Palestinian man, they marked the start of a nightmare.

Israeli police arrested the man, a construction worker in a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem, after he posted on Face…

Israel: Botched Facebook translation lands man in lock-up; ‘Good Morning’ turns ‘Attack Them’
newsx.com · 2017

Palestinian builder Halawim Halawi who posted 'Good Morning' on his Facebook account which awarded him a few hours in the lockup. Facebook's automatic translation software which interpreted the post to mean "attack them" in Hebrew and "hurt…

A ‘Good Morning’ Reportedly Gets Man Arrested After Facebook Translate Error
supernewsworld.com · 2017

Digital Trends has reported that Facebook’s auto-translate feature allows users to connect beyond language barriers but one incorrect translation of a simple “good morning” proved to be a bit of a disaster for one Palestinian man. When the …

Man arrested for saying 'good morning' because online translator made a mistake
metro.co.uk · 2017

A construction worker was arrested after he posted ‘Good morning’ on Facebook, because the automatic translation got it wrong.

The Palestinian man had posted a photo at work with a cigarette and a coffee, adding a greeting to his followers …

Israel arrested a Palestinian after Facebook translated “Good morning” as “Attack them”
qz.com · 2017

Facebook says it automatically translates about 4.5 billion posts each day. With new research and advancements, the technology keeps improving, but it’s not perfect—and its flaws can have serious consequences.

Last week, a Palestinian man w…

dailydot.com · 2017

No translation service is perfect, but you wouldn’t expect it to get you arrested.

Facebook admitted that an error in its artificial intelligence-based auto-translation feature led to the arrest of a Palestinian man who posted “good morning…

news.ycombinator.com · 2017

Hacker news discussion of Facebook's apology.

Faulty Facebook translation leads to Palestinian man’s arrest
tomedes.com · 2017

It was only last week that we discussed the flaws of machine translation. In that case, the focus of the article was on the WeChat messaging app’s racial slurs. Now, a new story has once more highlighted the dangers posed by the machines th…

This Man Was Arrested For Posting 'Good Morning' On Facebook
thealternativedaily.com · 2017

Israeli police accidentally arrested a Palestinian man after he posted “Good morning” in Arabic on Facebook, together with a photo of himself at work.

The man was working at a building site on a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem and posed…

Palestinian Arrested After Facebook Translation Error
forward.com · 2017

A Palestinian man was mistakenly arrested in Israel after Facebook’s translation software turned his “good morning” photo caption into a threat.

The man, who works in a West Bank settlement, posted a photo of himself next to a bulldozer wit…

translateplus.com · 2017

Some automatic translation caused mistakes are harmless enough; others not so much. The occasional language faux-pas can be good for a laugh but you never know when a seemingly harmless mishap can cause real damage. The latest example of tr…

Man arrested after ‘good morning’ post was mistranslated by Facebook as ‘attack them’
forum.facepunch.com · 2018

[QUOTE]Israeli police arrested a Palestinian man after his “good morning” post was translated by Facebook as “attack them.” Social media monitoring combined with Facebook’s AI mistranslating a post led to a man being wrongfully arrested for…

Mixed Messages? The Limits of Automated Social Media Content Analysis
cdt.org · 2018

Governments and companies are turning to automated tools to make sense of what people post on social media. Policymakers routinely call for social media companies to identify and take down hate speech, terrorist propaganda, harassment, fake…

A Google translation isn't enough evidence to send someone to jail, finds the judge in a narcotics case (GOOG, GOOGL)
finance.yahoo.com · 2018

Greg Sandoval/Business Insider

A man from Mexico was pulled over on the highway in Kansas and was suspected of carrying drugs.

With the help of Google Translate, the Kansas Highway trooper asked the man in Spanish if he can search his car. …

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