Duolingo removes gay content in Russia
The US-based company behind the popular language-learning application Duolingo has agreed to remove content potentially violating Russian “LGBT propaganda” laws, the country’s media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has announced.
The watchdog said on Tuesday it had received a letter confirming the company’s compliance national legislation.
“The Duolingo company sent a response letter to Roskomnadzor, in which it confirmed that it had removed materials promoting non-traditional sexual relationships from its educational application,” the watchdog told TASS in a statement.
Roskomnadzor handed Duolingo a notice in April about its potential violation of Russian legislation and warning it “about a ban on publication of any materials promoting non-traditional sexual relations.” Failure to comply can result in hefty fines for companies operating in Russia, and further non-compliance can lead to their online services being blocked by the watchdog.
Russian authorities were notified of supposedly inappropriate materials disseminated by the app early this year by a local human rights group. The activists claimed that school students have repeatedly run into tasks provided by the app that involved descriptions of gay relations.
The US-based company has not commented on the matter, while its social media feeds are packed with celebratory messages to mark Pride Month. The free language-learning platform Duolingo was launched back in 2011, over the years becoming the world’s most popular app of its type.
Russia has increasingly tightened its legislation on “LGBT propaganda” since the early 2010s, first banning its dissemination among minors and ultimately expanding the prohibition to adults in 2022. This stance was toughened last November, when the Russian Supreme Court designated the “international LGBT public movement” as an “extremist” group.
The ban stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the Russian Justice Ministry, which argued that the movement had been involved in “incitements of social and religious discord” as well as showing unspecified “extremist traits.”
