Facebook’s Faltering Internationalism

With over one billion active users, Facebook spans borders, cultures, and language. It’s trying to make the latter less of a problem, rolling out a new feature that uses automatic translation software to let people post updates in multiple languages simultaneously. People viewing the message see a version most likely to make sense to them. It’s not entirely selfless, as Facebook will harvest masses of data with which to improve translations in the future. It isn’t doing quite as good a job at smoothing difficulties created by borders and culture, though. Israel’s Minister of Internal Security, Gilad Erdan, has accused Facebook of not doing enough to prevent incitement against the country, calling it “a monster” that “sabotages the work of the Israeli police.” In a statement issued Sunday — not directly to Erdan — Facebook staff said that it works “regularly with safety organizations and policymakers around the world, including Israel, to ensure that people know how to make safe use of Facebook.” Perhaps something got lost in translation.