AI Error or Sabotage? Sri Lanka Textbook Sends Students to Adult Chat Site, Probe Ordered

Sri Lanka has launched a criminal probe after a government English syllabus for 11–12 year-olds mistakenly directed students to an adult gay chat website. Officials blame sabotage as investigations begin.

Sri Lanka launched a criminal investigation on Friday after a government syllabus for 11 and 12-year-olds directed pupils to a gay chat website to improve their language skills. The Education Ministry lodged a formal complaint with police and launched an internal inquiry to establish how the blunder took place.

"We suspect sabotage," Education Ministry Secretary Nalaka Kaluwewe told AFP.

"We are in the process of implementing educational reforms, and this could be an attempt to stall them."

The Grade Six English syllabus suggested pupils could find a pen-pal to improve their language skills via buddy.net -- an online chat website titled the "Bad Boys Club", which invites users to "show your kinky side".

Homosexual activity is illegal in Sri Lanka, and the penalty for same-sex relations is up to 10 years in prison -- although there have been very few prosecutions in recent years.

Red-faced authorities ordered the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission to block access to the site on local internet providers.

165-Page Syllabus Passed Multiple Reviews

Kaluwewe said the 165-page English syllabus had been vetted by three separate teams, including English professors, but none had detected the error.

Officials said the page containing the referral to the chat site had been removed from 400,000 copies of the syllabus before being sent to schools in time for the start of the next term on Monday.

There were also several spelling mistakes in the document, which its authors have admitted was prepared with the help of artificial intelligence platforms.

Efforts to decriminalise homosexuality have met with strong opposition from Sri Lanka's conservative Buddhist and Catholic clergy.

The head of the National Institute of Education, which is responsible for the syllabus, Manjula Vithanapathirana, has stepped down pending the investigations.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)