TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Aceh NGO to sue Google over alleged racist translations
In a world where anyone from any background can connect with others, the online platform, Google Translate, has become an important part of society’s daily life
Change Size
I
span>In a world where anyone from any background can connect with others, the online platform, Google Translate, has become an important part of society’s daily life. Providing words from hundreds of national languages and regional vernaculars, the online translation platform is a reliable assistant to help those with different tongues understand each other better.
However, translation errors happen and sometimes they can lead to racial tensions.
The Malay and Aceh Community Forum has sent a letter of objection to Google LLC in California, United States, and Google Indonesia after claiming it found racist translations when the names “Malay” and “Aceh” were input into the program to translate from Javanese to Malay, Indonesian and English.
Haekal Afifa, a member of the forum, told The Jakarta Post that he captured the proof of the racist translations on his screen on Oct. 14.
“This is a [screen capture] that I recorded using the screen recording on my personal mobile phone. I recorded it on Oct. 14, 2:42 a.m.,” Haekal said in a text message on Friday.
In the capture, it is apparent that the translation of “Malay child” from Javanese to English was “son of a bitch”, while “Aceh girl” became “You jerk”, “What jerk” and “What a jerk”. There are many other examples of apparently racist translations depicted in the video.
Haekal said that the community has sent the letters to Google Indonesia using an online delivery service and to Google LLC in California via fax.
In the objection letters, the community said it felt there had been discriminatory practices, incitement to hatred, making fun of, and degrading the identity of Aceh and Malay cultures.
“For that reason, we ask your company to delete anything contained in translation that we have described above, or in other translations that we have not found, no later than three times 24 hours after you receive this protest letter, that is, from Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2019,” the letter said.
When checked on Oct. 18, the translations on the Google Translate platform were back to normal.
Haekal also said that Google Indonesia had sent an official apology letter on Friday afternoon.
“We will still go ahead with a subpoena because in that letter Google Indonesia said they are not responsible for the Google Translate service product. They say it’s Google LLC’s domain,” Haekal said.
“We want them to explain to us who contributed to the racist translation,” he added.
A Google Indonesia spokesperson who wishes to remain anonymous said that the error was caused by the system.
"Google Translate is an automatic translator, using patterns from millions of existing translations to translate a word or sentence. Unfortunately, some of those patterns can lead to incorrect and unintended translations,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said Google Translate is a learning machine that works by absorbing existing online translations from other platforms and pooling them in the application. Thus, it is not an open-source product in which users can vandalize output, such as what often happens with Wikipedia, for example.
“Google Translate is an automatic translator that uses machine learning, the translation results you see are from our model,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said that the company sincerely apologizes to anyone who might have felt disrespected by the error.
“We fixed the issue and deeply apologize for these errors. We really appreciate when faulty translations are pointed out to us, so we can take swift action in addressing and solving them,” they said.
