Meta Apologises After Falsely Announcing Indian Minister’s Death

Meta has apologised after a translation error on its platforms falsely suggested that Karnataka Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah, had died.

According to the Press Trust of India (PTI), the incident occurred on Tuesday when Mr Siddaramaiah posted a condolence message in Kannada on Facebook and Instagram, mourning the passing of veteran actress B Saroja Devi.

However, the platforms’ auto-translation feature mistakenly rendered the post in English as announcing the chief minister’s death.

“We’ve fixed an issue that briefly caused this inaccurate Kannada translation,” a Meta spokesperson said on Thursday. “We apologise that this happened.”

The mistranslation quickly drew criticism from the chief minister, who accused Meta of “distorting facts” and “misleading users” through its flawed Kannada translation tool.

He warned that such errors could have serious consequences, particularly involving official communications.

Siddaramaiah’s media advisor, KV Prabhakar, wrote to Meta demanding immediate corrective action.

He urged the company to temporarily suspend Kannada auto-translations until the system’s accuracy could be assured.

The letter also called on Meta to collaborate with Kannada language experts to prevent future mistakes.

When the BBC reviewed the post on Friday, the English auto-translation still read awkwardly, “The multilingual star, senior actress B Sarojadevi who passed away yesterday, paid his last respects.”

Meta has not confirmed whether it will suspend Kannada translations while improvements were being made.