Did Duolingo call J.K. Rowling "mean"? Language app's apology over its opinion on Harry Potter author explained

Language-teaching app Duolingo had to apologize after calling J.K. Rowling "mean" during one of its German lessons. One of the questions that users had to answer was 'Do you like books with Harry Potter as a character?' and there were two options. The right option in German, meant 'Yes, but in my opinion the author is mean.'

Meanwhile, the option response that was also written in German, read, 'Yes, you're right. I'm interested in sports.' According to The Daily Mail, this was observed by journalist Gaby Koppel who was using the app to learn German. Koppel immediately took to X and called out Duolingo for the insult. Koppel wrote,

"Shame on you @duolingo: learning German and I came across the sentence "Yes I like Harry Potter but the author is mean". How woke do you have to be to let #trans ideology infect a language lesson?"

Shortly after this tweet went up, Duolingo responded to Koppel and issued an apology for offending Rowling. The app wrote from its official X account,

"We apologise for any offence caused and will remove this content from the app."

To answer the titular question, yes, Duolingo had called J.K. Rowling "mean" during one of its lessons and had later issued an apology as well.

Gaby Koppel said that J.K. Rowling was the "only real life person" who was "picked out for criticism" on Duolingo

Apart from sharing her take on X, Gaby Koppel also spoke with The Telegraph about what she felt about this apparent insult done by Duolingo. Koppel told the outlet that she had been using the app for about five months. According to her, during this time, Rowling was the 'first and only real life person' who got 'picked out for criticism' on the app.

The journalist further added,

"Not Putin, not the Ayatollahs, but somebody who happens to take a gender-critical stance."

This happened sometime after J.K. Rowling extended support to author John Boyne. For context, Boyne was nominated for the Polari Prize but the nomination seemingly did not sit right with many fellow authors.

According to The Daily Mail, the authors even cited an article by Boyne in which he backed Rowling for her views on transgender issues and women's rights.

More than 800 publishers, writers, and editors signed a joint letter opposing the nomination of Boyne. Rowling, however, backed him and said,

"This makes me both sad and angry. An incredibly talented writer and a thoroughly decent human being (the two are by no means synonymous, as we know) traduced by tinpot tyrants without an ounce of his talent or integrity."

Meanwhile, Polari came up with a statement addressing the situation. The statement reportedly read,

"This commitment to inclusion remains unchanged. Polari is not and has never been a trans exclusionary organisation."

All this opposition and controversy surrounding the prize made the organizers decide that they were going to cancel awarding the prize completely for this year. Meanwhile, as for the issue with Duolingo, Rowling is yet to drop an official statement.