A Duolingo answer to a question in German that called Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling “mean” led to boycott threats and firing demands. Right-wing Rowling fans accused the language learning app of inserting pro-trans propaganda into its lessons and demanded justice for the billionaire.
Featured VideoCritics have called Rowling “mean” among other pejoratives for multiple reasons, but she has in recent years mainly focused her efforts on attacking trans rights in the U.K.
The German Duolingo lesson that allegedly called J.K. Rowling “mean”
According to writer and producer Gaby Koppel (@Gabykoppel), she was innocently working on her German the other day when the app proposed a question about Rowling’s signature series.
Advertisement“Do you like books with Harry Potter as a character?” it asked.
“Yes, but in my opinion the author is mean.”
In a tweet alerting the public to this scandal, Koppel wrote the answer incorrectly as “Yes I like Harry Potter but the author is mean.” Keep working on it, Gaby.
The real story here, of course, is that conservatives are calling Duolingo “woke” again.
Advertisement“How woke do you have to be to let #trans ideology infect a language lesson?” Koppel asked on X, tagging Rowling in her tweet.
The Duolingo account responded the next day with an apology and promise to take action.
“We apologise for any offence caused and will remove this content from the app,” the company wrote.
AdvertisementThe app did not explain how this answer wormed its way into a German lesson, but a 2023 company blog post may contain some hints. In the June post, it announced that Duolingo would be using AI to “create answers faster.”
By “AI,” they meant large language models, which use data scraped from the internet. The internet, of course, contains a lot of criticism of Rowling for her anti-trans views. Now we’re here.
“At least two people need to be fired”
A simple apology and vow to remove the offending answer was never going to be enough for Rowling defenders. Some right-wing X users demanded that someone be fired for the “mean” remark while more declared boycotts.
Advertisement“At least two people need [to be] fired, if not more – the one who created it for the app and the one(s) who approved it,” @HeartOfOrion replied to Duolingo. “(Not to mention the other examples of this crap.)”
“There goes my plan to start learning Spanish with @duolingo @Gabykoppel,” said @aJewishLizLemon. “I have needed to learn conversational Spanish to grow one of my markets but I won’t touch a company with poor practices.”
AdvertisementMany conservatives already had Duolingo on their hit list over past accusations of wokeness.
“I stopped using your app after seeing so many gay couples in it and middle eastern ‘Germans,’” wrote @skitten_hund. “It’d be extremely simple to tailor the characters to look like the ethnicity of the people who speak the language.”
Advertisement“Will you address the references to ‘my partner’ rather than spouse, husband, or wife?” asked @west_linux. “No sane person speaks like that.”
As it failed to appease the right, Duolingo also alienated at least one liberal with the apology.
User @bovineflu wrote that “it’s one thing for some idiot transphobe to complain that duolingo is woke but it’s another for duolingo to fold this quickly without putting up any resistance,” calling the company “pathetic.”
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