While the clashes in the Gaza Strip are more violent every day, online platforms and social networks are having difficulty positioning themselves. Worse still, some people experience “glitches” that clearly should never have arrived in production. This is the case of Instagram, which the automatic translation algorithm has put at the center of debate. When translated, generated bios automatically added the word “terrorist” when they contained a Palestinian flag emoji or the word “Palestinian.”
The company reacted upon this discovery, quickly apologizing. However, the pill has difficulty passing through to many users. This is particularly the case of Rasha Abdul-Rahim, director of Amnesty Tech, an Amnesty International branch specializing in tech companies. According to her, it is not a goal but a Meta “feature.” This would thus be a real systemic problem on the group’s social networks, which would have censored Palestinian content for years. We think, for example, of publications and videos banned and deleted on Facebook and Instagram in 2021 after the attack by the Israeli police on Palestinian demonstrators in Sheikh Jarrah.
