There is a racist element in Google Translate, Acehnese protest to Google
The Acehnese have lodged a protest with Google regarding the existence of racist translations in Google Translate. The letter sent to Google was done by an Acehnese named Haekal Afifa along with 32 other residents from various regions in Indonesia.
They write letters in two languages, namely English and Indonesian. The letter stated that he was from the Malay and Aceh Community Forum. They expressed objections to Google’s products, namely: Google Translate.
Acehnese are annoyed with Google Translate which contains racist elements
“Some of the meanings in Google Translate have degraded our dignity. We see this as a real form of racial or ethnic discrimination,” reads the letter sent to Google, as quoted by Dafunda Tekno.
There were also several protested phrases which were translated from Javanese to Indonesian. If you type ‘anak aceh’ or ‘wong aceh’ it will be translated as ‘b******n’.
Besides that, there are also a number of other phrases that contain meaning in the form of insults. The text of this racist translation is also available in Malay to English. Citizens want Google to act on all of these things.
“We certainly know that if this Google Translate product is open, anyone can fill in via contributors. But you assume that you don’t have a mechanism to verify everything that comes in. So that your product has hurt our pride and dignity as Malays and Acehnese. There are discriminatory practices here, instilling hatred, making fun of and degrading the identity of Acehnese and Malays,” he added.
Such a translation appears when the word Aceh is typed using all lowercase letters. Meanwhile, if the word ‘Aceh’ uses a capital letter in front of it, it will appear as usual.
Haekal Afifa sent a letter to Google Indonesia on Tuesday 15/10/19 yesterday. Meanwhile the central Google office was sent by fax. According to the chairman of the Aceh Civilization Institute, he knew that there were racist elements in the Google translation two weeks ago.
“Why are we protesting and questioning it, so that this problem doesn’t go anywhere and cause divisions in the nation. We don’t want that. How long the translation has been on Google, we don’t know. That’s why we will wait for clarification from Google Indonesia,” said Haekal.
Then after a while the word was tried again at 14:03 WIB, there was no longer available racist translation on Google Translate. This means that now it is back to normal as before.
