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Duolingo sent a letter to Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor, the watchdog confirmed in a statement, saying it had “removed all materials promoting non-traditional sexual relationships”, Russia state-cobtrolled Tass reported.

The decision came after Roskomnadzor confirmed it would check Duolingo for “LGBT propaganda” in February after a request from Radetel, a self-described “traditional values” advocacy group that found “same-sex dialogue” in the app’s lessons.

Following Radetel’s request, the head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Alexander Khinshtein, threatened to block Duolingo in Russia, adding that Duolingo should “immediately deal with this unpleasant problem”.

Duolingo’s removal of LGBT content is only the latest example of Russia’s continued censorship of the LGBT community, prompted by legislation providing for fines of up to 4 million rubles for disseminating so-called “LGBT propaganda”.

In November 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that the “international LGBT movement” qualified as an “extremist organisation”, effectively banning it and making pro-LGBT activity punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

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[-] casmael@lemm.ee 43 points 2 years ago

Yeah fuck Duolingo. Still wanted a piece of that market so they caved to autocratic pressure rather than pulling out. Weak.

[-] onion@feddit.de 5 points 2 years ago

Duolingo is a for-profit company, that is their job

[-] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 24 points 2 years ago

that's a shit excuse

[-] casmael@lemm.ee 19 points 2 years ago
[-] delirium@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

They do not have any profit in « that market » because app is demonetized in Russia and Belorussia though

[-] YeetPics@mander.xyz 22 points 2 years ago

Waiting patiently for a wise hexbear to explain why all LGBT people are 90% Nazis and they deserved this or whatever.

[-] sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 years ago

Wait...90% of Hexbear isn't gay?

[-] ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

Black Republicans exist.

That's all you really need to know.

[-] ibt3321@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 years ago

Yeah but tankie apologism takes precedence

[-] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 20 points 2 years ago

Why doesn't it have the guts, like Signal has threatened to leave the EU if ChatControl is implemented, to simply withdraw from Russia if they make unreasonable demands like that?

[-] Kacarott@feddit.de 13 points 2 years ago

The way I see it is that Signal's primary ""mission"" is to provide secure, private communication. Chat control presumably would mean they could not fulfill their mission, so they should rather pull out.

For Duolingo, their mission to provide easy access language learning is not directly impacted by the rules in Russia. Even if all the employees are against the rules in Russia, Duolingo can still provide language learning in Russia, which they might see as a worthwhile endeavour.

After all, afaik Duolingo being available is not actually beneficial for the Russian government, as it's another way for money to leave Russia ( ? I think), and makes it easier for Russians to get a wider worldview.

[-] agentshags@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 years ago

Money makes cowards

[-] delirium@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

As per their ceo, they want to provide access to education to all (which is good since educated people are less likely to believe propaganda) and they do not monetize the app in that country in any way, which means no taxes going to putins pocket.

People are quick to jump to conclusions but they’re right here.

[-] lunar_ecchi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 2 years ago

Just deleted my account, thanks duo for your bad service 🙃

[-] Marzanna@yiffit.net 4 points 2 years ago

What does "platform in Russia" mean? Is it some kind of dedicated site?

[-] towerful@programming.dev 15 points 2 years ago

Most multinational web apps will have different deployments for different countries.
Locating the servers geographically closer to the users reduces latencies and costs.
Running different deployments allow them to tailor more closely to local regulations, without having it impact everyone else

[-] Marzanna@yiffit.net 2 points 2 years ago

So the content people get on the site is based on their IP? It sounds unfair for me. Anyways, Doulingo is useless for me since they removed discussion completely. I suggest people to boycott Duolingo due to their homophobic decision.

[-] towerful@programming.dev 2 points 2 years ago

Not really based on a user's IP.
Based on BGP peer routing, so it's actually physical location of users/ISP/trunks etc, and how they connect to the rest of the world networks.
The geographically local data center can announce a shorter route for a specific IP (block) than a data center on the other side of the planet, so the packets get routed to it

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago

Russia took down a statue of Steve Jobs when Tim Apple (I mean Tim Cook) came out. What a stupid reaction. But I guess that means Jobs was sucking dick by proxy, so…

this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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