Thai Mistranslation Shows Risk of Auto-Translating Social Media Content

从泰语误译看社交媒体中自动翻译的风险

2020-08-03 20:50 slator

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After a machine translation of a post from English into Thai about the King’s birthday proved offensive to the Thai monarchy, Facebook Thailand said it was deactivating auto-translate on Facebook and Instagram, revamping machine translation (MT) quality, and offering the Thai people its “profound apology.” Thailand is known for its stringent lèse-majesté laws and violators can be imprisoned for up to 15 years for negative statements about the monarchy. As a result, the Thai press has avoided publishing the offensive translation or stating exactly what it was. A July 28, 2020 post about the King’s birthday on the Facebook page of the Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS) was auto-translated from the English: “[Live] Candle-lighting ceremony to celebrate the birthday of HM the King on July 28, 2020 at 6.45 PM.” (Here is the same message posted in Thai on Thai PBS’ YouTube channel.) After being run through Facebook’s auto-translate feature, the short, innocuous message turned into such an offensive post that it caused the country’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society to fire off a letter to Facebook Thailand and Singapore, telling the social media giant to take responsibility for the snafu. The Royal Thai Police launched an investigation into the issue after Thai PBS filed a formal complaint with its cybercrime division. The MT snafu got a fair amount of coverage on Thai mainstream media, which has been reporting on the government’s efforts over the past half-year to deal with violators of the country’s Computer Crime Act. Daily newspaper Khaosod quoted cybercrime commander, Col. Pichet Kumpeeranon, as saying, “We’re collecting evidence and investigating those who intentionally shared the wrong translation.” The same newspaper added that they are “not allowed to publish the [offending Facebook translation] in full.” Bangkok Post reported that Thai PBS came under fire from viewers over the mistranslation, but that the network corrected the Facebook post once it was made aware of the mistake. The same report said that, thus far in 2020, the Thai government has received cybercrime-related complaints about more than 8,700 URLs in total — and the courts have issued orders against over 7,000, most of them related to social media posts. Hard-hitting political paper Thai Examiner pointed out, “Although the basis for the [Facebook] complaint is a technical malfunction, many onerous legal provisions in Thailand are ones of strict liability including many offences under the Computer Crime Act of 2017.” Even Malaysia’s New Straits Times reported on the matter, quoting Digital Economy and Society Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta as saying, “Facebook gave little cooperation although it operates a service in Thailand and Thais generate fruitful benefits to the company.” The Thai Minister noted how, following court orders, YouTube took down 93% of offending URLs, compared to Facebook’s 28%. Meanwhile, The Thaiger published the original Facebook “apology letter” in Thai.
一篇关于国王生日的帖子被机器翻译成泰文后,该译文被认为是冒犯了泰国君主。Facebook (泰国)表示,它正在停止 Facebook 和 Instagram 上的自动翻译功能,改进机器翻译的质量,并向泰国人民表示“深深的歉意”。 泰国以严格的 "亵渎王室 "法著称,违反者可因发表有关君主制的负面言论而被判处长达15年的监禁。因此,泰国新闻界一直避免发表带有攻击性的译文,也避免说明具体负面内容。 2020年7月28日,泰国公共广播服务公司(Thai PBS)的脸书页面上,一条关于国王生日的帖子是由英文自动翻译的。"[直播]2020年7月28日下午6点45分举行点烛仪式,庆祝国王陛下的生日。" (以下是泰国公共广播公司YouTube频道上用泰语发布的同一消息)。 在通过Facebook的自动翻译功能后,这条简短,无害的信息变成了一条极具攻击性的帖子,以至于该国的数字经济和社会部向Facebook泰国和新加坡发出了一封投诉信,要求这家社交媒体巨头为这场混乱负责。 在泰国公共广播公司向其网络犯罪部门提出正式投诉后,泰国皇家警察对这一问题展开了调查。 泰国主流媒体对该机器翻译故障引发的混乱进行了大量报道,这些媒体一直在报道政府在过去半年里处理违反该国《计算机犯罪法》所做的努力。 每日报纸Khaosod援引网络犯罪指挥官Pichet Kumpeeranon上校的话说,“我们正在收集证据,调查那些故意分享错误翻译的人。”同一份报纸还说,他们“不允许全文发布(具有冒犯性的Facebook翻译)。” 据《曼谷邮报》报道,泰国公共广播公司因翻译错误而受到观众的抨击,但在意识到这一错误后,立马纠正了脸书上的帖子。 同一份报告称,2020年至今,泰国政府共收到8700多个网址的网络犯罪相关投诉——法院已针对7000多个网址发出禁令,其中大部分与社交媒体帖子有关。 一向持强硬政治态度的报纸《泰国审查者报》指出,“尽管投诉Facebook的依据是技术故障,但泰国许多繁重的法律条款都是严格责任条款,其中包括2017年《计算机犯罪法》中的许多罪行。” 就连马来西亚《新海峡时报》也对此事进行了报道,引用数字经济与社会部长Buddhipongse Punnakanta的话说,“尽管Facebook在泰国运营服务,而且泰国人为该公司产生了丰硕的收益,但他们之间几乎没有开展任何合作。” 这位泰国部长指出,在法庭命令下,YouTube删除了93%的违规网址,而Facebook只删除了28%。 与此同时,这位泰国人用泰文 在Facebook发表了“道歉信”。

以上中文文本为机器翻译,存在不同程度偏差和错误,请理解并参考英文原文阅读。

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