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Reuters could not confirm when the glitch first surfaced or its
origin, though reports of it by users began circulating widely
on Twitter on Tuesday.
Sending a message with an emoticon representing a flag, and then
using the WeChat's auto-translate feature from Chinese to
English, yields English-language messages that at times appear
to mock the country that the flag represents, though often has
no discernible sense.
"We are taking immediate action to fix a translation bug on
WeChat," a Tencent spokeswoman told Reuters in a statement.
"We appreciate users who flagged it and would like to apologize
for any inconvenience caused. We will continue to improve our
products and services."
Inputting the flags of many countries yielded non-sequitors in
translation but one example that caused much discussion on
Twitter was autotranslating the emoji for Canada's flag, which
yielded the English words "he is in prison".
Last year, Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Chinese tech
giant Huawei Technologies and the daughter of its founder at the
request of the United States, which has charged her for
allegedly committing bank fraud.
China detained two Canadian citizens, former diplomat Michael
Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, shortly after her arrest
and has charged them with gathering state secrets.
The Canadian Embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to a
Reuters request for comment.
Other examples of the glitch included inputting the flag for
Myanmar, which yielded the phrase "jackass" in translation.
Bosnia yielded the phrase "he's in a coma," and Argentina
yielded the phrase "you're in love".
(Reporting by Josh Horwitz and Pei Li; Additional reporting by
Colin Qian in Beijing; Editing by Susan Fenton)
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