This is why Facebook, and not its CEO, needs to learn Chinese better

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”.