Facebook's automatic translation system incorrectly translated a Thai PBS live stream title about the King's birthday ceremony, changing 'King's birthday' to 'King's Memorial Day' in Thai, causing public outrage and leading to criminal investigation by Thai authorities.
On July 28, 2020, Thai PBS posted a live stream on Facebook of a candle-lighting ceremony celebrating His Majesty the King's birthday. The original English caption read '[Live] Candle-lighting ceremony to celebrate the birthday of HM the King on July 28, 2020 at 6.45 PM'. Facebook's automatic translation system incorrectly translated 'King's birthday' to 'King's Memorial Day' in Thai, which refers to a death anniversary rather than a birthday celebration. The mistranslation appeared on multiple Thai media Facebook pages, not just Thai PBS. Thai PBS discovered the error 10 minutes after the broadcast began and immediately corrected it at 6:55 PM. The incident caused widespread public outrage and complaints to Thai PBS. Facebook's Alex Fenby from Singapore apologized, calling it a 'technical error on auto-translation' and filed an urgent task for investigation. Thai PBS filed a formal complaint with the Technology Crime Suppression Division of the Royal Thai Police. The Digital Economy and Society Ministry sent a letter to Facebook demanding accountability. Facebook temporarily suspended its auto-translation feature from English to Thai while fixing the system.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that inadvertently generate or spread incorrect or deceptive information, which can lead to inaccurate beliefs in users and undermine their autonomy. Humans that make decisions based on false beliefs can experience physical, emotional or material harms
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed