Meta Apologises After Facebook's Auto-Translation Declared CM Siddaramaiah Dead

Social media giant Meta has apologised after its automatic translation tool erroneously declared Chief Minister Siddaramaiah dead while translating a condolence message posted by the Karnataka CMO in Kannada on Facebook.

On Tuesday, CM Siddaramaiah posted a condolence message in Kannada on Facebook and Instagram, condoling the death of Indian actress B. Saroja Devi.

The Meta English translation of the message stated, “Chief Minister Siddaramaiah passed away yesterday multilingual star, senior actress B. Took darshan of Saroja Devi’s earthly body and paid his last



respects.”

Meta’s AI-powered translation tools are used across Facebook and Instagram for translating public bios and content.

The company acknowledged that its machine translation model had produced errors in Kannada translations on Facebook but claimed the issue has now been rectified, the CM’s office said.

The company’s response came after CM Siddaramaiah, taking to social media on Thursday, posted, “Faulty auto-translation of Kannada content on Meta platforms is distorting facts and misleading users. This is especially dangerous when it comes to official communications.”