Wordle Players Point Out Double Standard With Censored Words
Officially released in November 2021, Wordle was an unassuming word guessing game developed by Brooklyn-based software engineer Josh Wardle. It gained very little traction initially, but, by January 2022, Wordlehad become a worldwide sensation. Such was its fame that The New York Times bought it for a seven-figure sum, but the news outlet’s takeover has brought with it controversy regarding the censorship of offensive language.
Some have taken issue with the implementation of ad tracking in the game’s mobile version, while others have argued that the difficulty of the game seems to have increased since The New York Time’s acquisition in early February. However, the most prominent talking point stems from the inconsistent censorship of guessable words and terms in Wordle.
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In a post on the Wordle subreddit, u/Keeqsie took issue with the fact that the word “slave” was removed from the guessable words list, but “nazis” was apparently deemed appropriate enough to remain. Responders to the thread also pointed out that, while a common slang word for female genitalia has been removed, another crass one still remains. One might only expect to find some of these words used on the unofficial NSFW Wordle adaptation Lewdle, but their haphazard removal still strikes many as odd.
Reddit user u/pedanticowl offered an interesting explanation for what seems like completely random censorship. Wordle filters guesses through two lists, one comprised of words that are possible answers, and another comprised of words that are never intended as answers but remain guessable. When removing controversial terms from the site, The New York Times’ software engineers neglected to switch
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