towards the lower end was because I said some stuff about AI, and I didn’t give enough context. Because of that, we got some backlash on social media,” von Ahn said. “The most important thing is we wanted to make the sentiment on our social media positive. We stopped posting edgy posts and started posting things that would get our sentiment more positive. That has worked.”
On TikTok, the top comments on Duolingo’s videos often remain criticisms of the company’s AI approach. Snarky commenters will ask if videos with multiple people in them are made with AI, to which Duolingo will reply, “Nope. Made by our great team!”
But even if public sentiment toward Duolingo has shifted, its bottom line has not … and from the company’s perspective, that’s what matters.
