Security News > 2023 > October > Ubuntu discovers 'hate speech' in release 23.10 — how to upgrade?
Ubuntu, the most popular Linux distribution, has pulled its Desktop release 23.10 after its Ukrainian translations were discovered to contain hate speech.
According to the Ubuntu project, a malicious contributor is behind anti-Semitic, homophobic, and xenophobic slurs that were injected into the distro via a "Third party tool" that lives outside of the Ubuntu Archive.
"We have identified hate speech from a malicious contributor in some of our translations submitted as part of a third party tool outside of the Ubuntu Archive," announced the project.
On its community forum, the Ubuntu team further explained that malicious Ukrainian translations were submitted by a community contributor to a "Public, third party online service" relied upon by the Ubuntu Desktop Installer for providing language support.
"Please keep in mind that translations are data files that support internationalisation of applications. These files are updated with the support of third-party online systems with contributions from individuals all around the world that then get integrated into Ubuntu. It's unfortunate when that path of collaboration is undermined and used as a mechanism of social aggression. Canonical and Ubuntu do not condone hate speech or offensive language of any kind, as per our code of conduct 21.".
In the meantime, users are advised to download Ubuntu Desktop 23.10 from the Ubuntu downloads page using the Legacy installer ISO that remains unaffected by the incident.