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The Israel Police mistakenly arrested a Palestinian worker [...] because they relied on automatic translation software to translate a post he wrote on his Facebook page. The Palestinian was arrested after writing "good morning," which was misinterpreted; no Arabic-speaking police officer read the post before the man's arrest.
[...] the man posted on his Facebook page a picture from the construction site where he works in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Ilit near Jerusalem. In the picture he is leaning against a bulldozer alongside the caption: "Good morning" in Arabic.
The automatic translation service offered by Facebook uses its own proprietary algorithms. It translated "good morning" as "attack them" in Hebrew and "hurt them" in English.
Arabic speakers explained that English transliteration used by Facebook is not an actual word in Arabic but could look like the verb "to hurt" – even though any Arabic speaker could clearly see the transliteration did not match the translation.
Source: Haaretz
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Tuesday October 31 2017, @05:30PM (3 children)
> And what the hell kind of threat is it to see a two-word phrase "attack them" on a photo of a man
> calmly taking a break at work, having a cigarette and coffee while leaning on the tire of his frontloader
Methinks the Bear hasn't been paying attention [google.com].
heavy machinery is a useful weapon, readily accessible.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:05AM (2 children)
Completely missing the point that the supposed vaguely threatening caption of "attack them" does not line up well with the apparent demeanor and tone of the overall photograph, nor its context. Any rational person who simply looked at the photo itself should have realized that the words didn't make much sense. The guy was obviously simply on a break or preparing to get started with his work day, while doing normal human things like drinking a coffee. Just drop your preconceptions about Arabs or Palestinians and look at the damn photo.
Any idiot knows that heavy machinery can be used to do bad things. But people who want to make terroristic threats will normally pair their menacing words with at least somewhat menacing images. If you thought the person in that image was Italian you'd find this whole thing ridiculous.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:17AM (1 child)
People in NY look up at low-flying planes.
People in London and Nice keep an eye on trucks maneuvering around.
People in Israel are careful when some Semite drives heavy equipment around. Can you blame them for thinking "attack them", with a smile, should be investigated as an allusion to an attack?
I blame them for not even knowing "good morning" after almost 70 years of daily "interactions" with Palestinians. Not for taking "attack them" on a picture with a bulldozer seriously.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:42AM
Fascinating that "Semitic" refers to both Hebrew and Arabic speakers, similar to "Hispanic" for Spanish speakers, yet I've never heard "anti-semitic" used outside of the isolated context of what always seems to mean "ethnically Jewish" before. Props for making me open my dictionary app and learn something new.
I can't blame the Israelis for investigating a possible threat. I can blame them for taking the "black homeowner" downtown after he probably told them "hey, this is my own property, I haven't done anything wrong" and they obviously didn't bother to check the truth of his statement. (referring to earlier analogy) Would they have done the same to a Jewish Israeli citizen? I can't picture it.
Otherwise I can't really disagree in general with anything you just said. Your strings of words have truthiness in them.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ