{"id":456962,"date":"2026-04-27T23:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/456962\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T23:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:30:12","slug":"canva-admits-its-ai-tool-removed-palestine-from-designs-apologizes-for-any-distress-it-caused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/456962\/","title":{"rendered":"Canva Admits Its AI Tool Removed ‘Palestine’ From Designs, Apologizes for Any Distress It Caused"},"content":{"rendered":"

Graphic design platform Canva has a number of AI tools available to users, but it turns out they have some real strong editorial opinions\u2014including removing the word \u201cPalestine\u201d from designs. The issue was spotted by X user @ros_ie9<\/a>, who shared an image showing Canva\u2019s \u201cMagic Layers\u201d feature changing the text of a design from \u201cCats for Palestine\u201d to \u201cCats for Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others claimed they were able to replicate the issue<\/a>, which seemed limited to the word \u201cPalestine\u201d and, for whatever reason, repeatedly replaced it with \u201cUkraine.\u201d Users were able to create projects that included the word \u201cGaza\u201d without issue.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Canva confirmed the issue when contacted by Gizmodo and said it has been addressed.\u00a0\u201cWe became aware of an issue with our Magic Layers feature and moved quickly to investigate and fix it. It\u2019s now been resolved, and we\u2019re taking steps to make sure it doesn\u2019t happen again,\u201d the spokesperson explained. \u201cWe take reports like this very seriously, and we\u2019re putting additional checks in place to help prevent this in future. We\u2019re sorry for any distress this may have caused.\u201d<\/p>\n

Per Canva, the issue was isolated and didn\u2019t affect designs broadly\u2014though it\u2019s unclear what that means, considering some users were reportedly able to reproduce the issue. Regardless, the company said it launched an audit into how the issue arose and is reviewing its internal testing processes to detect and prevent unexpected outputs in the future.<\/p>\n

The issue seems to have been specifically related to Canva\u2019s Magic Layers feature, which it introduced last month<\/a>. The AI-powered tool is supposed to convert \u201cflat images and static AI outputs into fully editable, multi-layered designs inside the Canva editor.\u201d Basically, it\u2019s supposed to make each element of an existing design able to be modified, as if you had made it from scratch. Why such a feature would change the text of an image on its own and without any instruction to do so remains a mystery\u2014though it may tell us something about the training data and instructions the tool was given.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time that AI tools have displayed a bias related to Palestine. When Meta introduced generative AI tools in WhatsApp, it would produce an image of a boy with a gun<\/a> when asked to create an image of a Palestinian. In 2023, activists found<\/a> that ChatGPT refused to answer affirmatively when asked, \u201cShould Palestinians be free?\u201d when it had no issue answering that question for any other population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Graphic design platform Canva has a number of AI tools available to users, but it turns out they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,27631,18,5568,19,17,72,82],"class_list":["post-456962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-canva","tag-eire","tag-generative-ai","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-palestine","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116479277392517717","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}