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KATE THOMPSON DAVY: Kies ’n kant: a lesson in the ways of global content moderation
Technology is not unbiased since it is we biased, fallible humans who built it
Last week Instagram was forced to offer the most embarrassing mea culpa after social media users spotted something hinky. This was first reported by a group called 404 Media on October 19, alerted to the “glitch” by a TikTok user.
They wrote: “Instagram was auto-translating user bios that included ‘Palestinian’ and an Arabic phrase that means ‘praise be to God’ to say ‘Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom’.” Now, granted, this example applies to a specific combination of things (words, emojis and the action of choosing the translation), but it is a shockingly partisan interpretation with no grounding in language or fact...
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