Israeli police arrest Palestinian after Facebook translates 'Good morning' to 'Attack them'
Israeli police arrest Palestinian after Facebook translates 'Good morning' to 'Attack them'
Israeli police arrested then released a Palestinian who posted "good morning" in Arabic on Facebook after software mistranslated it as "attack them", local media reported.
2 min read
23 Oct, 2017
The Palestinian man deleted his Facebook post following his release [Facebook]
Israeli forces last week arrested a Palestinian worker after an Arabic greeting message he posted on Facebook was mistranslated as a call for attack, Israeli media reported on Sunday.
Authorities in Israel relied solely on a translation software, which mistranslated a "Good morning" message the Palestinian man posted on his Facebook page to "Attack them".
Police immediately detained the man on suspicion of incitement, without getting an Arabic-speaking officer to check the post before the arrest.
The Palestinian man, who works in a Jewish settlement construction site in the West Bank, posted a picture of himself standing by a bulldozer, with a caption reading "Good morning" in Arabic.
However, Facebook's automated translation service translated the message into Hebrew as "Attack them".
Israeli police were allegedly alarmed by the post following recent vehicle ramming attacks against Israeli forces in occupied Palestinian territories and suspected the man was preparing for an attack.
After checking, the police confirmed the correct translation and released the suspect a few hours following his arrest.
It was unclear how such a translation error could have been made as there are no apparent similarities between the Arabic expression used for "good morning" and the phrases in Hebrew or English.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP "a few days ago, a Palestinian was detained for questioning on suspicion of incitement through his Facebook page".
She said he was "immediately released" after the suspicions turned out to be false.
The Palestinian man deleted his Facebook post following his release, according to Israeli daily Haaretz.
Israel has long cracked down on Palestinian social media use.
In September 2016, a meeting reportedly took place between Facebook and Israeli government officials to take measures to combat online "incitement."
Facebook subsequently approved 95 percent of the 158 requests submitted by Israeli authorities to remove content.
More than 6,500 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel for a range of offences and alleged crimes.
Around 500 are held under administrative detention, which allows imprisonment without charge.
More in Opinion
