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Translations can be tricky at their best and it looks like Facebook has learnt it the hard — and extremely embarrassing — way. As per multiple online reports, Facebook’s translation made a huge gaffe when it translated Chinese president Xi Jinping’s name to “Mr Sh*thole”. Interestingly, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg can very well converse in Mandarin as he once spoke to a group of Chinese students in 2014. However, Zuckerberg’s social media platform can’t really ‘cope’ that well with the language. President Xi was on a visit to Myanmar when a post about his visit was published on State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s official Facebook page. When translated to English, Xi’s name was translated to “Mr Sh*thole”. A report by Reuters further revealed that a local Myanmar news site carried a story with the headline, “Dinner honours president Sh*t hole”. Facebook promptly apologised for the error … [Read more...] about This is why Facebook, and not its CEO, needs to learn Chinese better

What just happened? Facebook has made one the largest acquisitions in its history, paying between $500 million and $1 billion for neural interface startup CTRL-Labs. The company is best known for making a bracelet that can be used to control a computer via the wearer’s thoughts. The startup will join Facebook Reality Labs—the unit formerly known as Oculus Research—which is developing AR glasses. “Technology like this has the potential to open up new creative possibilities and reimagine 19th century inventions in a 21st century world,” wrote Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, Facebook’s Vice President of AR/VR. “This is how our interactions in VR and AR can one day look. It can change the way we connect.” … [Read more...] about Facebook acquires neural interface startup CTRL-Labs, maker of a mind-reading bracelet

The system could help people with communication disorders, and has applications for augmented reality, where users could interact with what they see using their minds. Coming from a huge company like Facebook, questions have been raised about the privacy implications of such a technology, but Dugan said it was not interested in decoding a person’s random thoughts. … [Read more...] about Facebook working on tech that lets people type using the power of thought

MUNICH, - Facebook will do a better job of preventing bad actors from abusing its platform to manipulate this year's U.S. presidential election than it did four years ago, its public affairs chief Nick Clegg said on Monday. Facing a critical audience at a technology conference in Munich, Clegg, a British former deputy prime minister hired by Facebook in 2018, said interference by Russian and other operatives in the 2016 vote had "shocked everybody". But the world's largest social network had since taken effective action to reduce the spread of fake news, he said, while most extremist political content was now being detected before it comes to public notice. "We are getting better and better at protecting elections from foreign interference," Clegg told the DLD technology conference. "Touch wood, we will be able to do a lot better in the U.S. presidential elections this year than we did four years ago." U.S. special prosecutor Robert Mueller's report into suspected Russian … [Read more...] about We’re getting better at protecting elections – Facebook’s Clegg

One of the most sensitive situations involves people sharing violent or graphic images of events taking place in the real world. In those situations, context and degree are everything. For instance, if a person witnessed a shooting, and used Facebook Live to raise awareness or find the shooter, we would allow it. However, if someone shared the same video to mock the victim or celebrate the shooting, we would remove the video. … [Read more...] about Facebook vows to only delete graphic live video used to mock victims