Facebook translates 'good morning' into 'attack them', leading to arrest

A Palestinian man has been arrested after Facebook wrongly translated his 'good morning' post in Arabic as 'attack them'. He was arrested by Israeli police last week, reports the Daily Mail. The man, a construction worker in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit, uploaded a picture of himself leaning against a bulldozer and in the caption he wrote an Arabic term meaning 'good morning'. Later, a software malfunction translated it to mean 'attack them' in Hebrew and 'hurt them' in English. According to the report, police only confirmed that a Palestinian had been mistakenly arrested then released following suspicions of incitement. He was release few hours after the arrest. However, it was unclear how such a translation error could have been made as there are no apparent similarities between the Arabic expression and the phrases in Hebrew or English. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said: “A few days ago, a Palestinian was detained for questioning on suspicion of incitement through his Facebook page.” Stating that the man was released, she said the Facebook post has been deleted.