The Internet was abuzz over the weekend when it was discovered that Apple’s built-in virtual assistant “Siri” was telling users that Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin is “the president of the Zionist occupation state.”
Social-media users shared screenshots and videos on Saturday evening of “Siri” referring to Israel as “the Zionist occupation state” when Apple users asked it to name the president of the State of Israel.
The error was corrected within the hour, with “Siri” now saying that “Reuven Rivlin is the president of Israel.”
Apple has yet to formally comment on the issue.
Apple 🍎 HACKED!
When asked who the President of #Israel is, #siri answers “Reuven Rivlin is the President of the Zionist Occupation State” … 😳 pic.twitter.com/fL5ShW4lTU
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) January 19, 2020
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that at 5:28 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) on Saturday an anonymous user named “The Arab Man” hacked into Rivlin’s Wikipedia page and edited its content, which resulted in the error. Apple often uses Wikipedia as its source for information, according to the report.
Channel 12 said it took several minutes to fix the description on Rivlin’s page, and a few more mistakes were made before it was corrected, such as depicting the Israeli president as “the main child of Israel.”