SILICON VALLEY – Popular languages app duolingo has begun using its friendly, interactive interface to instruct millions of people trying to improve their second language to commit brutal, grisly homicide.
“At first all the phrases it was teaching me were like ‘Peter eats a Plum’ or ‘Diane likes to watch movies,’” said David Walmack, “But about a week ago it switched to ‘Peter wants you to kill your boss’ and ‘did you see how that guy just looked at you?’”
“Which in German, are even more disturbing,” he added.
Users from all over the world have reported similar incidents where a friendly man in a toque or a mixed race couple have suddenly started commanding them to asesinato, muertre, or убийство. So far the only language that appears immune to the issue is Hungarian.
“The worst part was when it made me read aloud that “My father deserves to die” and then made me do it again because my tears screwed up my pronunciation,” said Heather Sobotka.
“Also it keeps telling me to kill, but it never tells me how.”
Louis Von Ahn, C.E.O. of the company, advised that they are looking into the matter, but refused to clarify whether it was a glitch or intentional feature. In the meantime duolingo is encouraging people to “really question” whether the multilingual death sentence is not merely a reflection of what they’ve been wanting to do deep, deep down.
At press time users had also noticed that the Catalan translation for “you should murder your cousin” was in the wrong tense.
