This Google Translate 'error' has been secretly trolling flat-earthers
Even if this was a mistake, it's still pretty funny
Flat-earthers are a small – but thoroughly committed – band of conspiracy theorists who, as you obviously know, think the earth is flat.
Ignoring centuries of scientific proof and the fact that no-one’s ever actually fallen off our supposedly flat earth, these guys go through life fearing the day they’ll get a just a little too close to the edge and then… it’s a one-way ticket off the planet for them!
And while it might be easy to make fun of flat-earthers, I bet you didn’t expect them to be epically trolled by one of the biggest companies in the world.
Google Translate users have found a hidden trick that cleverly lampoons the conspiracy theorists - and here’s how it works.
If you type in the phrase “I’m a flat-earther” into the translation service, you’re provided with the words “Je suis un fou.”
And if you then translate that back into English, well…
Yes, it ends up basically calling flat-earthers ‘crazy’ fools.
Google has issued a statement on the translation mix-up, calling it an ‘error’.
“Translate works by learning patterns from many millions of examples of translations seen out on the web,” a Google spokesman told CNET.
“Unfortunately, some of those patterns can lead to incorrect translations. The error has been reported and we are working on a fix.”
Read more: An exclusive interview with the flat-earther who ‘disproved gravity’
One person who is totally fed up with this resurgence in flat-earth conspiracy is scientist and TV personality Neil deGrasse Tyson.
“We have video from space of the rotating spherical Earth. The Earth is round,” deGrasse Tyson said in a video from earlier this year.
“For me, the fact that there’s a rise of flat-Earthers is evidence of two things. One, we live in a country that protects free speech. And, two, we live in a country with a failed educational system. Our system needs to train you not only what to know but how to think about information and knowledge and evidence. If we don’t have that kind of training, you’d run around believing anything.”
You tell ‘em Neil!
(Image: Getty)
