Roskomnadzor asked Duolingo to search for “LGBT propaganda”

Roskomnadzor sent a request to the language learning service Duolingo to check its content “for the spread of LGBT propaganda.” Interfax was told about this by the department's press service.

In a letter from RKN, Duolingo is warned about the “prohibition of publishing materials that promote non-traditional sexual relationships” and is asked to eliminate violations. “The answer has not yet been received,” the RKN said.

The department recalled that for violating the requirements of the law, Duolingo could be fined from one to four million rubles or have access to the service restricted in the Russian Federation.

“The Duolingo service has Russian analogues,” Roskomnadzor added, without specifying which ones.

• Duolingo is one of the most popular language learning apps, created in the USA in 2011.
• The inspection of the service by Roskomnadzor became known in early February 2024. Activists of the public organization “Siberian Human Rights Group “Rathetel”” complained about Duolingo. As an example of “LGBT propaganda” in Duolingo, they cited the following sentences from translation tasks: “Ben and Peter love each other. They are gay" (Ben and Peter love each other. They are gay) and "Clara met her wife Maria at a lesbian bar" (Clara met her wife Maria in a lesbian bar).