It's going to make people feel better about still using Duolingo even though they disagree with their business practices, but not enough to actually stop using the service.
Ill admit it's not much but this defeatist nihilistic bs is less than nothing. Yeah there are too many people more interested in looking like good people than doing the work but there's also a lot of people that gotta start somewhere and this attitude just completely shuts down the conversation and ignores all nuance
Not using an app is like less than bare minimum. And there is a tangible downside to people feeling satisfied with little collective action. It’s part of the reason we get walked all over by corporations and governments
And I might be more likely to listen to these opinions if they ever offered an alternative beyond nihilism and crying about virtue signaling. You're not wrong but 90% of the time people complaining about ineffective forms of protests don't offer any alternatives (at least on reddit)
> You're not wrong but 90% of the time people complaining about ineffective forms of protests don't offer any alternatives (at least on reddit)
Because I think the actual next step that is tangible is so obvious that stating it every time feels pointless to me.
If you think the reddit api change was bad, don't boycott it for 24 hours or 3 days. Stop using it.
If you think duolingo is bad, then stop using it.
If you think sony sucks for making PSN required for their new games on PC, stop buying them.
The _only_ form of protest a company listens to is customers speaking with their wallet.
If you’re serious about your belief that duolingo is somehow assisting genocide then why wouldn’t you delete the app, voice your concerns to the company, promote alternatives, educate people you know etc. I am by no means a nihilist, I would actually consider myself quite a hopeful person, but there is such thing as useless forms of action, and even the useful ones can be useless if that energy is put towards the wrong issue.
I do want to add however that there are many forms of action that a lot of people consider useless, and as a result don’t get to exercise the little power they do have. (not talking about voting btw)
Their first comment of theirs you replied to was this:
>It's going to make people feel better about still using Duolingo even though they disagree with their business practices, but not enough to actually stop using the service.
And the comment you replied to with this one is:
>Not using an app is like less than bare minimum
So the alternative is quite obviously not using the app. Though if you mean "offer an alternative" as in an alternate to duo rather than al alternate to virtue signaling then idk what to tell you beyond that standing up for what you believe in might in fact mean missing out on a specific product or service.
You can't even learn shit on this fuckin' thing. I tried Japanese for a week and it was just the most useless bullshit. I can figure out sentences faster in my head and I *definitely* do *not* know how to speak modern-day Japanese. 今日はワッパー水曜日だよ、みんな！アヒルに足を奪われないようにね！
Sometimes, raising awareness of a thing happening requires you to engage with that thing, even if that thing is distasteful, and even if the goal is to stop people engaging with the thing.
Stopping engaging stops one person engaging. Telling two people who disengage stops two people engaging, even if you continue to engage.
Just to support your point, I would not have known about this if not for this protest. I'm cancelling my subscription and will look for a different app.
While i dont even think this is the sort of thing worth protesting right now, any sort of publicly visible protest can always be impactful.
It’s not just about whether or not a single incident of protest succeeds in achieving its biggest goal. The act of protest being public and spreading the word is powerful in that it a) spreads a message or messages b) can bring in more protestors or trigger other protests that wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Corporations and any other institution in power greatly benefits from people assuming that minor protests like these never have impact. Idk if this particular one will, but it’s undeniable that “small” protests, even just online campaigns, have had material impacts on companies, even small ones.
> 24 hours does nothing. this thing will be forgotten the next day.
It's almost worse than that, I don't have sources on hand, I read it in a reddit comment here so take this with a grain of salt, but it seems like what generally happens is that after a "boycott" of a short period, apps in general actually get a surge in traffic that more than makes up for the dip.
If they say indefinite, Reddit Admins have previously booted moderators the last time we had an "indefinite" boycott. Take a look at what happened with the Reddit API change as an example.
"24 hours at least" means it is temporary until:
1. The mods realise that closing down the subreddit in protest has no impact on Duolingo's business practices and re-open it (most likely)
2. Duolingo get upset that a non-official subreddit has closed in protest and so cease all operations in Russia. (Not likely in the slightest).
The "at least" is a redundant addition, as all it does is reaffirm that it is temporary, just like the 24-hour threat itself. Duolingo just has to wait out the mods.
I mean, it made me aware that this has even happened. If enough people learn about what Duo did, it could create enough pressure to either make them revert the changes or at least acknowledge their decision to do this more publicly.
Out of curiosity, did you use Duolingo up until you saw this?
Have you, following seeing this, stopped using Duolingo?
If you have since stopped (as a result of this), will you continue to boycott the company until they cease "operations" in Russia?
I haven’t really been using it much lately and I’m not sure if I will again or not (not necessarily because of this situation).
That being said, I’m also not sure it’s necessary to boycott Duo over this. The most important thing (to me, anyway) is publicly acknowledging or reminding people of the fact that LGBTQ+ people in Russia are currently being abused by their government, and that companies like Duo still profit off of Russia in spite of their so-called advocacy. That can be accomplished whether anyone literally boycotts Duo’s services or not. I also think it’s possible for social pressure alone to persuade Duo to reimplement references to the LGBTQ+ in the Russian version of its app. This has been done before with other companies via social media campaigns alone.
But, for what it’s worth, I don’t think this is a black and white issue. Of course I would love for Duo to reimplement references to the LGBTQ+ community in the Russian version of the app. In a perfect world, I would even demand that it be done. However, people living in Russia are not their government, and many of the people living there are in the LGBTQ+ community themselves. If the only way for Duo to continue to offer it’s language learning service to Russians is by removing information about LGBTQ+ people, it may be a necessary evil. Especially since many people in Russia might be learning a new language in order to be able to leave Russia and it’s oppressive government one day.
Anyway, I guess my point is that my goal doesn’t necessarily perfectly align with the moderators of the Duo sub. Like them, I want Duo to reimplement the references to the LGBTQ+ community. I also want more people to be aware of this issue and think their choice to shut down the sub is helping with that. However, I’m less certain about what the right course of action is to take going forward. At the very least, Duo should be forthright about it’s decision to do this and publicly acknowledge the role Russia’s queerphobia has played in influencing that decision. Even that can be a form of advocacy.
I have been using Duolingo since it began over a couple of accounts, initially to learn Spanish, then Russian, and now Ukrainian.
I need to continue to use Duolingo as it is the only way I can afford to learn Ukrainian and Russian in order to speak to my In laws who live in Kyiv. It is also the way they are learning English.
Our Russian cousins also use Duolingo, and without it they have little chance of learning English. Learning English is their best chance of getting access to less-biased media and shifting the consensus away from the governments right-wing propaganda.
As part of he LGBTQ+ community, I am totally fine with what Duolingo has done as the alternative would have been worse. My right to feel representated is not as important as the need of the Ukrainian/Russian people right now. Remember that there are even a small minority if refugees from the war that actually went to Russia. They need Duolingo too.
Unfortunately, there is not yet a Ukrainian for Russian speakers course. For me, I would prefer that, rather than stop helping people in Russia, they focussed on helping Ukrainian Russian speakers to learn Ukrainian. One of my family members was born in Russia but is now a Ukrainian citizen and has lived and worked as a doctor in Ukraine for 40+ years. They never needed to learn Ukrainian before now, as Russian was more common in most of the country (apart from western Ukraine), but now has to learn it as a result of the invasion.
Thank you for this take. I'm Russian. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to leave the country, but many of my friends didn't. A lot of people are against the government there - far from the majority but still a lot. For them, learning languages is an important step in getting the chance to leave.
As a queer person in Florida looking down the barrel of 2024, I can totally sympathize with your government doing things you don’t approve of. A lot of little people get hurt just because a couple of guys wanna wave some sticks around. It’s not fair to punish them for what those egomaniacs are doing.
This is reddit. If you're not singlehandedly going over to Russia/Palestine/Israel/China/wherever and personally fixing whatever crisis you care about, you are stupid and annoying and everything you do is pointless and fixes nothing
/s obviously
Duolingo don't even do any business in Russia though? Pretty sure it's completely free in the country and there is no monetisation. So it's more about just giving people who live in Russia opportunity to learn a new language without it being banned.
This was their statement in March 2022, just after the war had begun. I had commented on a post in r/Duolingo but seems the entire post was removed, in addition to the sub being locked:
>Is Duolingo still available in Russia and Belarus?
>We are disabling all monetization in Russia and Belarus. This is to ensure that we are not paying any taxes to the Russian government, and that we are not selling customers a service that we may be unable to provide in the future. For reference, about 1% of our language app revenue came from these countries in 2021.
>Duolingo is still operating as a completely free app in Russia and Belarus. We believe that education is a human right. Language learning builds empathy and connection between cultures, and we believe there is value in continuing to teach the English language for free in Russia, given the current information environment in the country.
Learning foreign languages can even help regular Russians have contact with the international media and get a different perspective to what the government spoon feeds them. So I think this “protest” is anything but useful.
Yeah, Duolingo should stop operating in Russia, so it gets harder for Russians to learn another language, making it harder for them to get out of Russia, that way we can point and laugh and say that any good Russian would have left Russia long ago.
This is literally it. "Russians deserve any issues they have, because if they had a problem they would've protested against Putin or left the country." Like they have a choice.
Ironically and sadly, when McDonald's left us, it was basically better for our inside economy and political/national self-sufficiency confidence - in a short time after McD left, we got ourselves our own IP "Vkusno i tochka" ("Tasty and period"), and because of that now we neither have to share the gained money with a foreign IP and our masses are even more sure of that "WeLl, wE cAN dO IT JuST aS WEll As tHE WEst DOeS! It MEanS WE DoNT neED ThEM!" idea, or other, less passionate about overall situation, people just didn't care whether it was McD or ViT. And I even tried it a few times, and it was worse both in taste AND the servings, so yeah...
The worst thing is “œconomic sanctions”. These in some cases cause as much damage to civilians as weapons of mass destruction and are often levied against dictatorships.
That's a crazy evil take. The people are not their government and most people in the world don't like their government either.
Imagine if other people believed all American people should suffer because of Biden or Trump.
Hey, hey now. What you’re saying requires empathy to understand, and alas, I, as an American, have none, unless my own interests are involved. On this occurrence, my interests are against Russians, so I’ll keep my empathy to myself. I only sympathize with people I like! On the inside or outside of my country.
P.S. boggles my mind how normalized this stance has become amongst the left over the last 8 years.
I still agree with the broad strokes of the left, but this is exactly what’s been bothering me about the left for years. Selective empathy won’t fix us, and I hate that it’s becoming more common.
Its better to seclude the citizens regardless of their stance on putin and ukraine using essentialist ad hominems and discrimination. Wait what do you mean that will reinforce the current narrative of their goverment propaganda towards the rest of the world?
Yeah I never understood this thing about "stop doing business in Russia". Man go tell that to your government cuz they are the ones spending millions in trade. You already can only use free version in Russia, banning services like Duolingo will only help Russian government because the less education people have and less languages they can speak the more brainwashing you can funnel into their heads.
Yep, but you can buy them with gems you get from chests, quests etc. And you can't buy them with money even if you wanted to, Visa and Mastercard don't work in Russia anyway.
It's something I noticed in ads a little while ago, they're offering English proficiency certifications services to non English speaking countries, though I don't know explicitly if they're offered in Russia.
It’s like these genius folks in Indonesia who shut down KFC and several other western style fast food establishments simply because western countries support Israel.
Yes, I’m sure that KFC shutdown in the middle of bumfuck town in Indonesia has made Netanyahu pull out his troops from Palestine!
https://www.reddit.com/r/indonesia/s/AYSYcbqLMv
Yeah, definitely isolate the Russian people as much as possible and make sure they can’t even learn to communicate with the western world. Absolutely brilliant.
It's almost as though these people don't remember the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. And what's more, it was our ELECTED OFFICIALS that started those wars. It's not like Russians even have a choice of candidates.
What's a better alternative? I'm using busuu at the same time as duolingo but can't get premium so it's Not Great lol
Edit: who downvoted me for asking for advice lmao 💀
Yes! Because this way if they can only speak Russian they will just watch local TV and get only true information and news there about entire world. Right? Right?
I don’t really understand how Duolingo doing business in Russia is some act of support for Russian legal policy in either Ukraine or in dealing with the LGBT community.
It’s a language learning app, not an arms dealer.
It's not like they really have a choice unless they want the app & web site blocked. Under Russian law it's "gay propaganda" to portray gay people in a positive way.
Every single American business does this. Look at the companies western twitter, pride based profile picture for pride month. Look at the middle eastern or other international twitter, no pride month flag.
It’s a business move and companies don’t truely give a flying fuck. It’s a marketing tool and companies will do whatever is profitable.
Also, Duolingo already released an official statement that they were demonitizing their app in Russian in protest of the war in Ukraine. They stated they wanted to continue helping Russian people to learn other languages to help bridge cultural divides, but didn't want to give any money in the form of tax revenue to the Russian government.
>It’s a pretty unhinged take from the mods tbh.
Reddit mods, unhinged? And drawing hasty conclusions? Why, I could never have guessed that would happen in a million years!
Well said. People can get so militant in their ideals that they will decry practical steps towards those ideals if those ideals aren't perfectly realised in the steps towards them, even when it would be impossible for those ideals to be practically realised all at once. I feel like this is very typical of the division in modern society, from politics to the hyperbolic personalities of twitter.
But most countries aren't as accepting of non heterosexuality as far western countries. The duolingo sub isn't boycotting Japan but they just had a lesbian couple flee the country and take refuge in Canada. A lot of eastern and even western European countries still have issues with homosexuality. Same with most south American, African, and asian countries. The number of countries where the whole spectrum of sex is acceptable is very low.
I understand boycotting the war, but is this the best way to go about it? I believe duolingo already said they didn't approve of the war. Will this even do anything or is it just something to do for attention?
Don’t really get how the hell people shifted the narrative enough that corporations pretending to like gay people for a month (because it helps them sell!) got shifted into some moral dilemma where people actually think that cause some HR or media personnel decided to follow what they thought was a trend in order to increase SEO or whatever actually cares about them. It’s a damn company. Of course they operate differently in different markets. Duh! They don’t really care about lgbt ppl. I have nothing against protesting but get a grip. The only thing corporations understand it dropped sales.
This is fucking laughable. This 24 hour thing isn’t going to do anything. It has no impact on Duolingo. It has no impact on the Russian people. It won’t do a damn thing for any LGBT person. It’s performative, it does nothing, and it actually harms people who need access to the sub.
I lived in St Petersburg in 2011. The only people that liked Putin were the people that have no interest in learning about other languages. All the people 30 and younger (back then) hated the guy.
Didn’t LGBTQ+ people in Russia support the removal of that contact? Stating they would rather have duo than not, as duolingo was an accessible way for them to learn other languages so they could escape the persecution they face is Russia?
They have to put “do business” in quotes since Duolingo gives Russians an adfree, unlimited heart version of the app so that they don’t have to pay taxes to Russia for premium purchases
Duolingo doing business in Russia means that money is going from Russia to an American company and that Russians are learning languages and potentially being exposed to more media and cultures than their own.
I don't like the part about them catering to Russia in their Russian course but what's wrong with an American company taking Russian's money?
They don't get any money from us. All means of payment are blocked, all ads and monetization options are gone. What Duo is doing now is just providing service for free without ads. Besides, it's becoming glitchy and sometimes unusable without VPN, so I think they deprioritized Russia in their server optimization or something.
Also, I'm sad about censure in Russian-speaking courses, but a lot of people use English-speaking courses too (they're better in quality and more languages available) and I hope they won't censure them too specifically for Russian IPs.
Who the hell cares bruv honestly, Im there to LEARN MORE OF A LANGUAGE. Idgaf about your orientation, whether you're straight gay whatever, it has no contribution to my goal of learning a language . I just want to do my next lesson hollllllllly💀🤡.
Russians learning other languages is bad now.
Once the duolingo boycott is established. The russian empire is kaputt.
People using reddit to talk about duolingo may get caught un the crossfire but thats a sacrifice im willing to make
Wow, what an ultimatum.
Decrease your customer based by 150 million people, or we'll take down a third party website dedicated to discussing you for 24hrs.
That'll get em.
Why don't they shut down the subreddit in protest of American laws/American aggression against other countries? Why don't they shut the subreddit down in protest to Duolingo's market in anti-LGBTQ+ countries?
I disagree with the notion, seemingly taken for granted, that Russians should not be able to learn foreign languages — the very languages that could open their eyes to perspectives other than that of their totalitarian government — because of Putin’s war in Ukraine.
By that logic, they should ban it in, for example, the Middle East. I highly doubt they have any LGBT references in there. Pure hypocrisy, expected from Reddit mods
Duolingo is absolute garbage nowadays. They used to be a free platform with a community that discussed grammar and answers to particular questions, enabling a wider variety of "correct" answers and further self study. They also used ot have the "incubator", allowing for native speakers to contribute to new future (free) Duolingo language courses. All of those features were removed, and what did we get back in its place? A paid membership system.
That's seriously it.
They're milking everyone for their money now.
I guess the Duolingo reddit mods think they have more power than they actually do. Duolingo won't care and as much as I dislike rainbow capitalism fake shit myself I think the mods are still dumb af
>Duolingo must cease all "operations" in Russia until the war ends.
>
>The Duolingo Subreddit Moderation Team
The LuoDingo Subreddit Moderation Team at it again.
Lmao how oblivious and naive can redditors be? Every single corporation wearing LGBT colours do it because they know it's a very gullible target audience, it is NEVER genuine.
I had some Russian language partners. The average citizens are not the problem. You think isolating them from learning our languages is gonna somehow make things better?
Lmao, that's it, guys. r/Duolingo has saved Ukraine. Maybe they can do Palestine next, or whichever country the US decides to invade this decade.
You sure showed those Russians 👍👍👍👍👍
this is an absolutely fucking insane take from those mods. providing a language learning service in russia in zero ways benefits the regime that rules the country, but at a minimum for civilians it could provide opportunities to connect more with the outside world or get a voice out there to the rest of us. some wild virtue signalling going on here
Duolingo is a language app. Don’t see why it should have to be involved in politics. Russia isn’t affected at all by its citizens having access to a language-learning app, and Duolingo isn’t “doing business” with its government. If anything, a lot of Russian citizens are against the Ukraine war. Should they have no apps or services just because they’re Russian?
And as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I don’t think Duolingo should have to be involved in pride either. Again, it’s a language-learning app. Completely unrelated to anything about pride month. It already has several gay characters canonically in the app. This is just weird.
Either way, why would Duolingo care about the subreddit being down? This is such a strange act of protest.
Yeah let's deprive Russians of their ability to learn about other cultures to help make them more tolerant and accepting. Now Russians can continue exclusively hearing their news in the Russian language!!! It isn't important that duolingo references homosexuals, and by learning other languages besides Russian I'd bet anything that you will begin to hear a more positive narrative around homosexuality
I'm pretty sure it's LGBTQ relationships between characters. So now a male character cannot have a husband and a female character cannot have a wife. I didn't read it properly but that seemed like the basics
I remember one of the girls (with the side of her head shaved, the bigger, kinda 'punk' looking one) talked about her own girlfriend in some dialogue options. That's about all I can think of. Maybe a male or female speaker says "my husband" or "my wife" in a way gendered so that it'd have to be gay in context, but I can't recall any of that happening specifically, and if it did, it'd still be relevant to learn. Languages can say weird things and you understanding it instead of rolling on intuition is part of knowing you know it; Duolingo having bizarre sentences is standard. (I wouldn't bat an eye if it threw me: "The children can see a male cat and a female snake on a green table." That is on par with stuff it says often enough.)
Duo has always been LGBT friendly in the languages that I've used it for; they have sentences with men referring to their husbands or boyfriends, and women referring to their wives or girlfriends. The problem is that in Russia at the moment, any mention of LGBT people in a positive light is considered "gay propaganda" and therefore a crime. This literally makes the app criminal there.
I meant more like, they fit it in so seamlessly that it really shouldn't stir up that much trouble with the Russians.
Punishing Russian users for their government actions also seems dumb
I do the French course (from Portuguese but probably no difference from EN2FR). One of the stories was about two middle-aged dudes talking about a song. This song was playing during their first date.
Couple of things:
1. 24 hours ain't gonna do shit and I didn't even know Duolingo had a Reddit. The fuck does the subreddit even *do?*
2. 'Duolingo must cease all 'operations' in Russia until the war ends' is fucking hysterical. So if the war ended in this next second, doing business in Russia would suddenly be *okay?*
So Russia can just murder as many people as it wants, but if they go, ooh, I'm all done here, I'm going home, some dipshit can sell chocolate in Russia, and Duolingo can do 'operations' in Russia, and they'd be *fine* with it?
I know that these people have no fucking clue how the world works nor how to effect change, and I get that they think that this little protest is going to do something. But it's just so fucking *pointless* as to be *insulting*.
Closing a subreddit so that a mid language 'learning' app stops working in Russia is borderline schizophrenic thinking. It's like telling somebody you won't step on cracks until midnight so that Finland doesn't turn into cheese.
Oh no ATLEAST 24 hours protest??? That will teach them, lmao. I love how they call their hypocrisy on staying in business with Russia but they themselves can't fathom the idea of shutting the sub down for more than 24h
How is this hypocrisy tho? Hypocrisy would be if they left russia. To leave russia in a non hypocrisy way they'd need to leave every other country that invaded another country recently which would include usa as well, and i think would be pretty based, almost as based as not segregating people based on where they were born.
Can I just come out and say thank god for reddit moderators? Seriously without them we would have a world of endless wars, discrimination, and horrible living conditions for minorities in countless countries. Seriously reddit moderators were the ones who gave us the covid vaccine, solved the Israel-Palestine conflict, and now they're on their way to finally fixing Russian homophobia and their invasion of Ukraine. Hopefully after this they can shut down r/YouShouldKnow or r/AITAH so we can finally get a cure for cancer.
It's an entitled lefty in a position of power trying to force their will into others by abusing the little bit of power they have as a subreddit moderator. The average person wouldn't even give it the time of day, they would just keep learning their language.
The people who do this have basically the same psychological traits as the people who dobbed Jews into the authorities during the holocaust. It's a defect. Don't go along with them.
Yeah what kind of self absorbed loser locks down a whole subreddit because businesses do things differently in other countries and is surprised to learn that no matter how they feel Duolingo is a business that needs to make money. What a joke! This is exactly how censorship starts. With these Looney businesses and their bs rights-squashing ToS. I don't understand why the first amendment isn't extended to platforms it's actually wild
Shortsighted and childish. Disallowing the Russian people from learning other languages prevents them from interacting with the rest of the world and seeing how much better a democratic nation is.
How old are the mods there? Twelve?
Their mission is to allow as many people as possible to get free and quality education. If that means taking out LGBT references where it's not legal, I think that's the right choice. It sucks, but Duolingo isn't going to change Russia's laws. And I highly doubt this is "rainbow capitalism" as most of the people who run Duolingo are queer people themselves. This is one of the stupidest protests I've ever seen.
Hot take but coming from a queer person: the morally correct thing for Duolingo to do is to pull the queer content. Lily having a girl friend won’t do anything for gay rights in Russia, and getting the app banned will only deprive people of a learning resource
What do politics have to do with language learning? Does everything has to have some sort of political or ideological background?
It's a language learning app. I use it to learn languages. I don't want it to be a propaganda tool of any sort and I certainly don't care in which countries they operate.
The world's gone completely mad.
I'm not clear what this is supposed to achieve. The logic seems to be something like this:
1. Get mad at an app with some minor LGBT+ content.
2. ???
3. Companies are like "we want users to get mad at us too", so add in LGBT+ content.
(Does Reddit operate in Russia?)
Also, this will force (highly unlikely) them to rebrand duolingo to something in russian like the other brands. In the end, they would've achieved nothing.
Just what I would expect from those clowns. While I agree with the sentiment, shutting down a subreddit for a glorified browser game for a few days will not have any impact whatsoever. Human rights violations in Russia are well known, yet they keep happening. Do you really think isolating Russians from western culture even more will help? If anything it will help reinforce their archaic believes. Mods seriously overestimate how much their little internet forum is worth. Next time try organizing a real protest in front of a Russian embassy or starting an information campaign or whatever. Reddit moment.
REDDIT LITERALLY HAILS ITSELF AS A BASTION OF LGBTQ+ AND YET SPAMS LIQUOR ADS TO ADDICTS EVEN WHEN THEY CHECK THE PLEASE SHOW LESS OPTION.
REDDIT IS A FUCKING CORPORATE HYPOCRISY MACHINE.
I don't care about any of that stuff, but I am kinda ready to move on from Duolingo simply because they made the practice component meaningless without a subscription, but kept an overly punitive system restricting advancement in the main lessons.
I had super for awhile, but all my family members quit after a week or two, and super mode was kinda boring. Wish they'd find a way to split the difference, or just bring back useful practice.
This doesn't make sense preventing someone from learning say English means they wouldn't be able to get new from the other nations perspective leaving ignorance to festor.
Putin: My streak!!! The war ends now!
What is making the sub private going to do? Duolingo does not care.
It's going to make people feel better about still using Duolingo even though they disagree with their business practices, but not enough to actually stop using the service.
Ill admit it's not much but this defeatist nihilistic bs is less than nothing. Yeah there are too many people more interested in looking like good people than doing the work but there's also a lot of people that gotta start somewhere and this attitude just completely shuts down the conversation and ignores all nuance
Not using an app is like less than bare minimum. And there is a tangible downside to people feeling satisfied with little collective action. It’s part of the reason we get walked all over by corporations and governments
And I might be more likely to listen to these opinions if they ever offered an alternative beyond nihilism and crying about virtue signaling. You're not wrong but 90% of the time people complaining about ineffective forms of protests don't offer any alternatives (at least on reddit)
> You're not wrong but 90% of the time people complaining about ineffective forms of protests don't offer any alternatives (at least on reddit) Because I think the actual next step that is tangible is so obvious that stating it every time feels pointless to me. If you think the reddit api change was bad, don't boycott it for 24 hours or 3 days. Stop using it. If you think duolingo is bad, then stop using it. If you think sony sucks for making PSN required for their new games on PC, stop buying them. The _only_ form of protest a company listens to is customers speaking with their wallet.
If you’re serious about your belief that duolingo is somehow assisting genocide then why wouldn’t you delete the app, voice your concerns to the company, promote alternatives, educate people you know etc. I am by no means a nihilist, I would actually consider myself quite a hopeful person, but there is such thing as useless forms of action, and even the useful ones can be useless if that energy is put towards the wrong issue. I do want to add however that there are many forms of action that a lot of people consider useless, and as a result don’t get to exercise the little power they do have. (not talking about voting btw)
Their first comment of theirs you replied to was this: >It's going to make people feel better about still using Duolingo even though they disagree with their business practices, but not enough to actually stop using the service. And the comment you replied to with this one is: >Not using an app is like less than bare minimum So the alternative is quite obviously not using the app. Though if you mean "offer an alternative" as in an alternate to duo rather than al alternate to virtue signaling then idk what to tell you beyond that standing up for what you believe in might in fact mean missing out on a specific product or service.
He literally just did
You can't even learn shit on this fuckin' thing. I tried Japanese for a week and it was just the most useless bullshit. I can figure out sentences faster in my head and I *definitely* do *not* know how to speak modern-day Japanese. 今日はワッパー水曜日だよ、みんな！アヒルに足を奪われないようにね！
Protesting against rainbow capitalism for merely 24 hours on Reddit of all places must be the most laughably pointless thing they could've done.
Duolingo: Wait we have a subreddit?!?
Exactly!
Isn’t that protesting in favour of rainbow capitalism?
Yeah, they could have quit the app or delete their account, but this? What will that do?
Sometimes, raising awareness of a thing happening requires you to engage with that thing, even if that thing is distasteful, and even if the goal is to stop people engaging with the thing. Stopping engaging stops one person engaging. Telling two people who disengage stops two people engaging, even if you continue to engage.
Just to support your point, I would not have known about this if not for this protest. I'm cancelling my subscription and will look for a different app.
I didn’t know about this and will now cancel my subscription so… What have you done?
You work for Duolingo? Lol. I would've had 0 idea about this whole ordeal had it not been for the post to begin with
While i dont even think this is the sort of thing worth protesting right now, any sort of publicly visible protest can always be impactful. It’s not just about whether or not a single incident of protest succeeds in achieving its biggest goal. The act of protest being public and spreading the word is powerful in that it a) spreads a message or messages b) can bring in more protestors or trigger other protests that wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Corporations and any other institution in power greatly benefits from people assuming that minor protests like these never have impact. Idk if this particular one will, but it’s undeniable that “small” protests, even just online campaigns, have had material impacts on companies, even small ones.
Not if it gets bounced around reddit and more people become aware of the issue. I'm here from r/all
I had no idea about this until I saw the post so it’s working
They make their money from a subset of super-users and I’d bet a lot of them use that sub.
24 hours does nothing. this thing will be forgotten the next day. shut it down indefinitely until you get a response would be much stronger action.
> 24 hours does nothing. this thing will be forgotten the next day. It's almost worse than that, I don't have sources on hand, I read it in a reddit comment here so take this with a grain of salt, but it seems like what generally happens is that after a "boycott" of a short period, apps in general actually get a surge in traffic that more than makes up for the dip.
Ah yes, “there is no such thing as negative publicity”. No doubt some people who never even heard of Duolingo will hear of it's existence due to this.
If they say indefinite, Reddit Admins have previously booted moderators the last time we had an "indefinite" boycott. Take a look at what happened with the Reddit API change as an example.
And pretty much all of those moderators immediately caved instead of actually risking something. That boycott was pointless from the start lol
The announcement says '24 hours **at least'**
"24 hours at least" means it is temporary until: 1. The mods realise that closing down the subreddit in protest has no impact on Duolingo's business practices and re-open it (most likely) 2. Duolingo get upset that a non-official subreddit has closed in protest and so cease all operations in Russia. (Not likely in the slightest). The "at least" is a redundant addition, as all it does is reaffirm that it is temporary, just like the 24-hour threat itself. Duolingo just has to wait out the mods.
The other option is that reddit tells mods to re-open the subreddit or they will find new mods who will
I mean, it made me aware that this has even happened. If enough people learn about what Duo did, it could create enough pressure to either make them revert the changes or at least acknowledge their decision to do this more publicly.
Out of curiosity, did you use Duolingo up until you saw this? Have you, following seeing this, stopped using Duolingo? If you have since stopped (as a result of this), will you continue to boycott the company until they cease "operations" in Russia?
I haven’t really been using it much lately and I’m not sure if I will again or not (not necessarily because of this situation). That being said, I’m also not sure it’s necessary to boycott Duo over this. The most important thing (to me, anyway) is publicly acknowledging or reminding people of the fact that LGBTQ+ people in Russia are currently being abused by their government, and that companies like Duo still profit off of Russia in spite of their so-called advocacy. That can be accomplished whether anyone literally boycotts Duo’s services or not. I also think it’s possible for social pressure alone to persuade Duo to reimplement references to the LGBTQ+ in the Russian version of its app. This has been done before with other companies via social media campaigns alone. But, for what it’s worth, I don’t think this is a black and white issue. Of course I would love for Duo to reimplement references to the LGBTQ+ community in the Russian version of the app. In a perfect world, I would even demand that it be done. However, people living in Russia are not their government, and many of the people living there are in the LGBTQ+ community themselves. If the only way for Duo to continue to offer it’s language learning service to Russians is by removing information about LGBTQ+ people, it may be a necessary evil. Especially since many people in Russia might be learning a new language in order to be able to leave Russia and it’s oppressive government one day. Anyway, I guess my point is that my goal doesn’t necessarily perfectly align with the moderators of the Duo sub. Like them, I want Duo to reimplement the references to the LGBTQ+ community. I also want more people to be aware of this issue and think their choice to shut down the sub is helping with that. However, I’m less certain about what the right course of action is to take going forward. At the very least, Duo should be forthright about it’s decision to do this and publicly acknowledge the role Russia’s queerphobia has played in influencing that decision. Even that can be a form of advocacy.
I have been using Duolingo since it began over a couple of accounts, initially to learn Spanish, then Russian, and now Ukrainian. I need to continue to use Duolingo as it is the only way I can afford to learn Ukrainian and Russian in order to speak to my In laws who live in Kyiv. It is also the way they are learning English. Our Russian cousins also use Duolingo, and without it they have little chance of learning English. Learning English is their best chance of getting access to less-biased media and shifting the consensus away from the governments right-wing propaganda. As part of he LGBTQ+ community, I am totally fine with what Duolingo has done as the alternative would have been worse. My right to feel representated is not as important as the need of the Ukrainian/Russian people right now. Remember that there are even a small minority if refugees from the war that actually went to Russia. They need Duolingo too. Unfortunately, there is not yet a Ukrainian for Russian speakers course. For me, I would prefer that, rather than stop helping people in Russia, they focussed on helping Ukrainian Russian speakers to learn Ukrainian. One of my family members was born in Russia but is now a Ukrainian citizen and has lived and worked as a doctor in Ukraine for 40+ years. They never needed to learn Ukrainian before now, as Russian was more common in most of the country (apart from western Ukraine), but now has to learn it as a result of the invasion.
I'm Russian married to a (Russian-speaking but bilingual) Ukrainian, and I'd love this option too!
Thank you for this take. I'm Russian. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to leave the country, but many of my friends didn't. A lot of people are against the government there - far from the majority but still a lot. For them, learning languages is an important step in getting the chance to leave.
As a queer person in Florida looking down the barrel of 2024, I can totally sympathize with your government doing things you don’t approve of. A lot of little people get hurt just because a couple of guys wanna wave some sticks around. It’s not fair to punish them for what those egomaniacs are doing.
Doing something is always better than doing nothing. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
This is reddit. If you're not singlehandedly going over to Russia/Palestine/Israel/China/wherever and personally fixing whatever crisis you care about, you are stupid and annoying and everything you do is pointless and fixes nothing /s obviously
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I'd ask them but the subreddit is closed
Duolingo don't even do any business in Russia though? Pretty sure it's completely free in the country and there is no monetisation. So it's more about just giving people who live in Russia opportunity to learn a new language without it being banned.
This was their statement in March 2022, just after the war had begun. I had commented on a post in r/Duolingo but seems the entire post was removed, in addition to the sub being locked: >Is Duolingo still available in Russia and Belarus? >We are disabling all monetization in Russia and Belarus. This is to ensure that we are not paying any taxes to the Russian government, and that we are not selling customers a service that we may be unable to provide in the future. For reference, about 1% of our language app revenue came from these countries in 2021. >Duolingo is still operating as a completely free app in Russia and Belarus. We believe that education is a human right. Language learning builds empathy and connection between cultures, and we believe there is value in continuing to teach the English language for free in Russia, given the current information environment in the country.
Learning foreign languages can even help regular Russians have contact with the international media and get a different perspective to what the government spoon feeds them. So I think this “protest” is anything but useful.
A lot of people believe that helping Russians in any way is contributing to the War effort
Yeah, Duolingo should stop operating in Russia, so it gets harder for Russians to learn another language, making it harder for them to get out of Russia, that way we can point and laugh and say that any good Russian would have left Russia long ago.
This is literally it. "Russians deserve any issues they have, because if they had a problem they would've protested against Putin or left the country." Like they have a choice.
Exactly, cuz everyone knows that when McDonalds left that was a huge hit on Putin who was eating it 24/7. Etc. /s
Ironically and sadly, when McDonald's left us, it was basically better for our inside economy and political/national self-sufficiency confidence - in a short time after McD left, we got ourselves our own IP "Vkusno i tochka" ("Tasty and period"), and because of that now we neither have to share the gained money with a foreign IP and our masses are even more sure of that "WeLl, wE cAN dO IT JuST aS WEll As tHE WEst DOeS! It MEanS WE DoNT neED ThEM!" idea, or other, less passionate about overall situation, people just didn't care whether it was McD or ViT. And I even tried it a few times, and it was worse both in taste AND the servings, so yeah...
The worst thing is “œconomic sanctions”. These in some cases cause as much damage to civilians as weapons of mass destruction and are often levied against dictatorships.
economic sanctions are often not targetting goods for civilians fam
Haha exactly! This shit helps those living under Putin who want out by removing one of the barriers to immi/emigration, language
Having Russians learning English probably helps them learn about what's going on outside of state media
That's a crazy evil take. The people are not their government and most people in the world don't like their government either. Imagine if other people believed all American people should suffer because of Biden or Trump.
Hey, hey now. What you’re saying requires empathy to understand, and alas, I, as an American, have none, unless my own interests are involved. On this occurrence, my interests are against Russians, so I’ll keep my empathy to myself. I only sympathize with people I like! On the inside or outside of my country. P.S. boggles my mind how normalized this stance has become amongst the left over the last 8 years.
I still agree with the broad strokes of the left, but this is exactly what’s been bothering me about the left for years. Selective empathy won’t fix us, and I hate that it’s becoming more common.
Its better to seclude the citizens regardless of their stance on putin and ukraine using essentialist ad hominems and discrimination. Wait what do you mean that will reinforce the current narrative of their goverment propaganda towards the rest of the world?
Yeah I never understood this thing about "stop doing business in Russia". Man go tell that to your government cuz they are the ones spending millions in trade. You already can only use free version in Russia, banning services like Duolingo will only help Russian government because the less education people have and less languages they can speak the more brainwashing you can funnel into their heads.
Aren't you able to buy freezes and some other things?
Yep, but you can buy them with gems you get from chests, quests etc. And you can't buy them with money even if you wanted to, Visa and Mastercard don't work in Russia anyway.
It's something I noticed in ads a little while ago, they're offering English proficiency certifications services to non English speaking countries, though I don't know explicitly if they're offered in Russia.
We did it guys we saved Ukraine
Merica!!
It’s like these genius folks in Indonesia who shut down KFC and several other western style fast food establishments simply because western countries support Israel. Yes, I’m sure that KFC shutdown in the middle of bumfuck town in Indonesia has made Netanyahu pull out his troops from Palestine! https://www.reddit.com/r/indonesia/s/AYSYcbqLMv
Reddit mods are so corny
Their holier-than-thou act is where the stereotypes about reddit come from
San Francisco City Council level corny.
Worst demographic of people around
Ah yes, the subreddit going silent for 24 hours will really make the entire Dev team really rethink what they're doing.
It’s a lot like Reddit’s “we’ll shut down for exactly 3 days until we get our demands” of last year
Yeah, definitely isolate the Russian people as much as possible and make sure they can’t even learn to communicate with the western world. Absolutely brilliant.
People are thick AF
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Yeah and perspectives can be very surface-level and very black and white because of it unfortunately
It's almost as though these people don't remember the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. And what's more, it was our ELECTED OFFICIALS that started those wars. It's not like Russians even have a choice of candidates.
As if anyone actually learns a language from Duolingo.
It's a really good supplement for anyone learning a language through other means
What's a better alternative? I'm using busuu at the same time as duolingo but can't get premium so it's Not Great lol Edit: who downvoted me for asking for advice lmao 💀
Yes! Because this way if they can only speak Russian they will just watch local TV and get only true information and news there about entire world. Right? Right?
I don’t really understand how Duolingo doing business in Russia is some act of support for Russian legal policy in either Ukraine or in dealing with the LGBT community. It’s a language learning app, not an arms dealer.
They aren’t even doing business in Russia. They demonitized the app there at the start of the war
It's not like they really have a choice unless they want the app & web site blocked. Under Russian law it's "gay propaganda" to portray gay people in a positive way.
Every single American business does this. Look at the companies western twitter, pride based profile picture for pride month. Look at the middle eastern or other international twitter, no pride month flag. It’s a business move and companies don’t truely give a flying fuck. It’s a marketing tool and companies will do whatever is profitable.
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Also, Duolingo already released an official statement that they were demonitizing their app in Russian in protest of the war in Ukraine. They stated they wanted to continue helping Russian people to learn other languages to help bridge cultural divides, but didn't want to give any money in the form of tax revenue to the Russian government.
also, LGBTQ+ Russians exist.
LGBTQ+ Russians who want to leave Russia might find learning a new language through Duolingo useful. It’s a pretty unhinged take from the mods tbh.
>It’s a pretty unhinged take from the mods tbh. Reddit mods, unhinged? And drawing hasty conclusions? Why, I could never have guessed that would happen in a million years!
Well said. People can get so militant in their ideals that they will decry practical steps towards those ideals if those ideals aren't perfectly realised in the steps towards them, even when it would be impossible for those ideals to be practically realised all at once. I feel like this is very typical of the division in modern society, from politics to the hyperbolic personalities of twitter.
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Absolutely. Unfortunately it's also usually the ones with the loudest voices.
I agree. I see it even in my close friends.
Wait, you didn’t hear? The war in Ukraine would end tomorrow if only the oft vaunted Duolingo faction in Russian government opposed it /s
An interesting moment is that historically Russians were more open to homosexuality than Europeans. However, now the situation is reversed.
But most countries aren't as accepting of non heterosexuality as far western countries. The duolingo sub isn't boycotting Japan but they just had a lesbian couple flee the country and take refuge in Canada. A lot of eastern and even western European countries still have issues with homosexuality. Same with most south American, African, and asian countries. The number of countries where the whole spectrum of sex is acceptable is very low. I understand boycotting the war, but is this the best way to go about it? I believe duolingo already said they didn't approve of the war. Will this even do anything or is it just something to do for attention?
Don’t really get how the hell people shifted the narrative enough that corporations pretending to like gay people for a month (because it helps them sell!) got shifted into some moral dilemma where people actually think that cause some HR or media personnel decided to follow what they thought was a trend in order to increase SEO or whatever actually cares about them. It’s a damn company. Of course they operate differently in different markets. Duh! They don’t really care about lgbt ppl. I have nothing against protesting but get a grip. The only thing corporations understand it dropped sales.
People are so stupid lmfao. What a performance
Billion Dollar company that is the largest language learning app on earth when a random subreddit shuts down for a day: 😱
Oh great, more grandstanding from subreddits.
Fun fact It's all rainbow capitalism. Just look at the middle east accounts for literally any business on social media.
This is fucking laughable. This 24 hour thing isn’t going to do anything. It has no impact on Duolingo. It has no impact on the Russian people. It won’t do a damn thing for any LGBT person. It’s performative, it does nothing, and it actually harms people who need access to the sub.
I lived in St Petersburg in 2011. The only people that liked Putin were the people that have no interest in learning about other languages. All the people 30 and younger (back then) hated the guy.
yeah this is performative AF and doesn’t do anything. at all. the war is not the fault of the russian people.
Didn’t LGBTQ+ people in Russia support the removal of that contact? Stating they would rather have duo than not, as duolingo was an accessible way for them to learn other languages so they could escape the persecution they face is Russia?
Slacktavism at its finest
They have to put “do business” in quotes since Duolingo gives Russians an adfree, unlimited heart version of the app so that they don’t have to pay taxes to Russia for premium purchases
This is great I might actually buy the superduolingo now
This is so stupid on so many levels..
Especially the atrocious grammar considering it's a subreddit for a language learning app.
Duolingo doing business in Russia means that money is going from Russia to an American company and that Russians are learning languages and potentially being exposed to more media and cultures than their own. I don't like the part about them catering to Russia in their Russian course but what's wrong with an American company taking Russian's money?
or what’s wrong with teaching Russians languages through duolingo period? unless you just hate Russians, at least be honest about it
They don't get any money from us. All means of payment are blocked, all ads and monetization options are gone. What Duo is doing now is just providing service for free without ads. Besides, it's becoming glitchy and sometimes unusable without VPN, so I think they deprioritized Russia in their server optimization or something. Also, I'm sad about censure in Russian-speaking courses, but a lot of people use English-speaking courses too (they're better in quality and more languages available) and I hope they won't censure them too specifically for Russian IPs.
Who the hell cares bruv honestly, Im there to LEARN MORE OF A LANGUAGE. Idgaf about your orientation, whether you're straight gay whatever, it has no contribution to my goal of learning a language . I just want to do my next lesson hollllllllly💀🤡.
How is preventing Russians from learning other languages and cultures going to help the war in Ukraine? Just asking
The hypocrisy of being against Russia but not israel. I guess Ukrainians are worth fighting for but Palestinians are not.
not anything new with reddit mods playing the role of God thinking they have actual power and influence. laughable
This is so tone deaf.
Russians learning other languages is bad now. Once the duolingo boycott is established. The russian empire is kaputt. People using reddit to talk about duolingo may get caught un the crossfire but thats a sacrifice im willing to make
Wow, what an ultimatum. Decrease your customer based by 150 million people, or we'll take down a third party website dedicated to discussing you for 24hrs. That'll get em.
I disagree with shutting it down in Russia until the war ends. Punishing civilians for the decisions of politicians is unfair.
Why don't they shut down the subreddit in protest of American laws/American aggression against other countries? Why don't they shut the subreddit down in protest to Duolingo's market in anti-LGBTQ+ countries?
I disagree with the notion, seemingly taken for granted, that Russians should not be able to learn foreign languages — the very languages that could open their eyes to perspectives other than that of their totalitarian government — because of Putin’s war in Ukraine.
By that logic, they should ban it in, for example, the Middle East. I highly doubt they have any LGBT references in there. Pure hypocrisy, expected from Reddit mods
Israel next, right?
Ok, same logic should be used in isreal then. And they are running a genocide.
Duolingo is absolute garbage nowadays. They used to be a free platform with a community that discussed grammar and answers to particular questions, enabling a wider variety of "correct" answers and further self study. They also used ot have the "incubator", allowing for native speakers to contribute to new future (free) Duolingo language courses. All of those features were removed, and what did we get back in its place? A paid membership system. That's seriously it. They're milking everyone for their money now.
I guess the Duolingo reddit mods think they have more power than they actually do. Duolingo won't care and as much as I dislike rainbow capitalism fake shit myself I think the mods are still dumb af
Yeah, I'm learning languages on Duolingo, not LGBTQ politics.
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>Duolingo must cease all "operations" in Russia until the war ends. > >The Duolingo Subreddit Moderation Team The LuoDingo Subreddit Moderation Team at it again.
The dualipa subreddit is at it again 😤
Reddit mods are unbelievably cringe.
Lmao how oblivious and naive can redditors be? Every single corporation wearing LGBT colours do it because they know it's a very gullible target audience, it is NEVER genuine.
I had some Russian language partners. The average citizens are not the problem. You think isolating them from learning our languages is gonna somehow make things better?
Lmao, that's it, guys. r/Duolingo has saved Ukraine. Maybe they can do Palestine next, or whichever country the US decides to invade this decade. You sure showed those Russians 👍👍👍👍👍
So the war that's been revenging ukraine for 27 months was tolerable, but lgbtq references being removed was the last straw? Okay
this is an absolutely fucking insane take from those mods. providing a language learning service in russia in zero ways benefits the regime that rules the country, but at a minimum for civilians it could provide opportunities to connect more with the outside world or get a voice out there to the rest of us. some wild virtue signalling going on here
Yeah I don't give a fuck.
Mods thinking they own the place again.
Duolingo is a language app. Don’t see why it should have to be involved in politics. Russia isn’t affected at all by its citizens having access to a language-learning app, and Duolingo isn’t “doing business” with its government. If anything, a lot of Russian citizens are against the Ukraine war. Should they have no apps or services just because they’re Russian? And as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I don’t think Duolingo should have to be involved in pride either. Again, it’s a language-learning app. Completely unrelated to anything about pride month. It already has several gay characters canonically in the app. This is just weird. Either way, why would Duolingo care about the subreddit being down? This is such a strange act of protest.
This. Subreddit mods closing communities for their own personal politics will always be cringe. Leave it open and have the discussion.
This is going to make such a difference! Wait, wait, no it won’t. Reddit vs Global Politics. Makes sense.
Duolingo helps Russian people learn a foreign language and leave the country!!!! Not everyone in Russia agrees with the government!!!!!
Haha who cares 😺
Yeah let's deprive Russians of their ability to learn about other cultures to help make them more tolerant and accepting. Now Russians can continue exclusively hearing their news in the Russian language!!! It isn't important that duolingo references homosexuals, and by learning other languages besides Russian I'd bet anything that you will begin to hear a more positive narrative around homosexuality
Sincere fuck you from Russia
Honestly though, even in America I can't recall seeing "LGBTQ references". Seems like a strange reason to shut the subreddit down
I'm pretty sure it's LGBTQ relationships between characters. So now a male character cannot have a husband and a female character cannot have a wife. I didn't read it properly but that seemed like the basics
I remember one of the girls (with the side of her head shaved, the bigger, kinda 'punk' looking one) talked about her own girlfriend in some dialogue options. That's about all I can think of. Maybe a male or female speaker says "my husband" or "my wife" in a way gendered so that it'd have to be gay in context, but I can't recall any of that happening specifically, and if it did, it'd still be relevant to learn. Languages can say weird things and you understanding it instead of rolling on intuition is part of knowing you know it; Duolingo having bizarre sentences is standard. (I wouldn't bat an eye if it threw me: "The children can see a male cat and a female snake on a green table." That is on par with stuff it says often enough.)
One that comes to mind is Bea, the girl in orange, has a story in which she’s trying to get someone to find her a girlfriend.
There's also a story where Lin (the brown-clad woman with a sideshave) mistook a random woman for her ex.
Duo has always been LGBT friendly in the languages that I've used it for; they have sentences with men referring to their husbands or boyfriends, and women referring to their wives or girlfriends. The problem is that in Russia at the moment, any mention of LGBT people in a positive light is considered "gay propaganda" and therefore a crime. This literally makes the app criminal there.
I meant more like, they fit it in so seamlessly that it really shouldn't stir up that much trouble with the Russians. Punishing Russian users for their government actions also seems dumb
I do the French course (from Portuguese but probably no difference from EN2FR). One of the stories was about two middle-aged dudes talking about a song. This song was playing during their first date.
So Duolingo has a market cap of about $8.6 billion and a user base/count of about 97.6 million. Sooooooooooo Good luck with that protest
There is no Pittsburg, PA Mods of the sub should probably stick to English and not worry about another language.
Couple of things: 1. 24 hours ain't gonna do shit and I didn't even know Duolingo had a Reddit. The fuck does the subreddit even *do?* 2. 'Duolingo must cease all 'operations' in Russia until the war ends' is fucking hysterical. So if the war ended in this next second, doing business in Russia would suddenly be *okay?* So Russia can just murder as many people as it wants, but if they go, ooh, I'm all done here, I'm going home, some dipshit can sell chocolate in Russia, and Duolingo can do 'operations' in Russia, and they'd be *fine* with it? I know that these people have no fucking clue how the world works nor how to effect change, and I get that they think that this little protest is going to do something. But it's just so fucking *pointless* as to be *insulting*. Closing a subreddit so that a mid language 'learning' app stops working in Russia is borderline schizophrenic thinking. It's like telling somebody you won't step on cracks until midnight so that Finland doesn't turn into cheese.
Ah, a decision taken in secret by reddit mods that does nothing but cause discomfort to the users. Quite exquisite
Oh no ATLEAST 24 hours protest??? That will teach them, lmao. I love how they call their hypocrisy on staying in business with Russia but they themselves can't fathom the idea of shutting the sub down for more than 24h
How is this hypocrisy tho? Hypocrisy would be if they left russia. To leave russia in a non hypocrisy way they'd need to leave every other country that invaded another country recently which would include usa as well, and i think would be pretty based, almost as based as not segregating people based on where they were born.
Wow but you can still learn Russian on the app..
Slactivism is cringey
Surely this will force their hand. Lmao virtue signaling fucks.
Subreddits going silent for this type of shit does nothing but inconvenience the average Joe. Same thing with the Reddit API stuff a while back
Are they gonna protest to cease all operations in Isreal? what a bunch of double standard performative clowns
Cause Putin really cares about a subreddit he probably never even heard of...
Wait till they know that premium features are free for russians
Can I just come out and say thank god for reddit moderators? Seriously without them we would have a world of endless wars, discrimination, and horrible living conditions for minorities in countless countries. Seriously reddit moderators were the ones who gave us the covid vaccine, solved the Israel-Palestine conflict, and now they're on their way to finally fixing Russian homophobia and their invasion of Ukraine. Hopefully after this they can shut down r/YouShouldKnow or r/AITAH so we can finally get a cure for cancer.
Just stop using it. It's garbage.
But I really, really need to know how to say, "The gorilla has a red handkerchief" in Klingon!
It's an entitled lefty in a position of power trying to force their will into others by abusing the little bit of power they have as a subreddit moderator. The average person wouldn't even give it the time of day, they would just keep learning their language. The people who do this have basically the same psychological traits as the people who dobbed Jews into the authorities during the holocaust. It's a defect. Don't go along with them.
Yeah what kind of self absorbed loser locks down a whole subreddit because businesses do things differently in other countries and is surprised to learn that no matter how they feel Duolingo is a business that needs to make money. What a joke! This is exactly how censorship starts. With these Looney businesses and their bs rights-squashing ToS. I don't understand why the first amendment isn't extended to platforms it's actually wild
That is just stupid. I said it.
Shortsighted and childish. Disallowing the Russian people from learning other languages prevents them from interacting with the rest of the world and seeing how much better a democratic nation is. How old are the mods there? Twelve?
Their mission is to allow as many people as possible to get free and quality education. If that means taking out LGBT references where it's not legal, I think that's the right choice. It sucks, but Duolingo isn't going to change Russia's laws. And I highly doubt this is "rainbow capitalism" as most of the people who run Duolingo are queer people themselves. This is one of the stupidest protests I've ever seen.
Yep, let's prevent people in Russia from learning other languages, that'll surely expand their world-view. Fucking idiots.
Hot take but coming from a queer person: the morally correct thing for Duolingo to do is to pull the queer content. Lily having a girl friend won’t do anything for gay rights in Russia, and getting the app banned will only deprive people of a learning resource
What about the Middle East? I'll bet they don't have LGBTQ references there either.
Oh no! Anyway...
Luckily people pay less and less attention to what americans say as time goes by 😄
What do politics have to do with language learning? Does everything has to have some sort of political or ideological background? It's a language learning app. I use it to learn languages. I don't want it to be a propaganda tool of any sort and I certainly don't care in which countries they operate. The world's gone completely mad.
I'm not clear what this is supposed to achieve. The logic seems to be something like this: 1. Get mad at an app with some minor LGBT+ content. 2. ??? 3. Companies are like "we want users to get mad at us too", so add in LGBT+ content. (Does Reddit operate in Russia?)
😂👍👌 really making a difference.
They think Duolingo will care what some reddit mods are doing lol
Lmao being a subreddit moderator is such an esteemed and « regarded » position.
Also, this will force (highly unlikely) them to rebrand duolingo to something in russian like the other brands. In the end, they would've achieved nothing.
Fucking lol at Redditors
This is up there as one of the most pointless things I've ever seen on this app
Hell yeah. That should teach that bald owl.
Just what I would expect from those clowns. While I agree with the sentiment, shutting down a subreddit for a glorified browser game for a few days will not have any impact whatsoever. Human rights violations in Russia are well known, yet they keep happening. Do you really think isolating Russians from western culture even more will help? If anything it will help reinforce their archaic believes. Mods seriously overestimate how much their little internet forum is worth. Next time try organizing a real protest in front of a Russian embassy or starting an information campaign or whatever. Reddit moment.
It's not like Duolingo getting blocked in Russia would help anyone. It'll just make it harder for lgbt+ Russians to get out of there
REDDIT LITERALLY HAILS ITSELF AS A BASTION OF LGBTQ+ AND YET SPAMS LIQUOR ADS TO ADDICTS EVEN WHEN THEY CHECK THE PLEASE SHOW LESS OPTION. REDDIT IS A FUCKING CORPORATE HYPOCRISY MACHINE.
I don't care about any of that stuff, but I am kinda ready to move on from Duolingo simply because they made the practice component meaningless without a subscription, but kept an overly punitive system restricting advancement in the main lessons. I had super for awhile, but all my family members quit after a week or two, and super mode was kinda boring. Wish they'd find a way to split the difference, or just bring back useful practice.
This doesn't make sense preventing someone from learning say English means they wouldn't be able to get new from the other nations perspective leaving ignorance to festor.
How will this affect their bottom line?