The New York Times recently bought Wordle, a viral web-based word game. Since then, it has already started censoring words on the platform.
Wordle is a web-based word game, where a player has six chances to guess the five-letter word of the day. With each guess, the game tells you if you got any of the letters correct.
It was created and operated by Josh Wardle. It began gaining traction in 2021 and became so successful that the NYT noticed. When he sold it, Wordle said the game would still “be free to play” on the NYT website.
For now, not much has changed about the game, except for the removal of certain “offensive” words. According to Polygon, the game does not allow you to guess gender slurs like “sluts,” “bitch,” and “whore.” If you guess these words, you get an error message that the word is “not in word list.”
“Offensive words will always be omitted from consideration,” a New York Times representative told Polygon via email. “As we have just started Wordle’s transition to The Times website, we are still in the process of removing those words from the game play.”
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