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The New York Times
NYT,
changed the answer to its daily Wordle game on Monday over concerns that users might perceive the game’s word as a commentary on the ongoing conversation about abortion and reproductive health rights for women.
Monday’s word, “fetus,” was “was loaded into Wordle last year,” according to the New York Times, and was not intended to reference the recent leaked Supreme Court majority opinion that indicated a desire to overturn the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade.
“At New York Times Games, we take our role seriously as a place to entertain and escape, and we want Wordle to remain distinct from the news,” the New York Times’s Monday afternoon statement read.
See also: Tesla to cover abortion travel costs for employees, joining Amazon, Yelp
The Times changed Monday’s answer to a different word, and a spokesman said that a “vast majority” of users saw the new word, but some people who had not refreshed their browsers saw “fetus” instead, spokesman Jordan Cohen told the Associated Press on Monday.
The recently leaked Supreme Court document was later deemed authentic by Chief Justice John Roberts, who said the leak was a “betrayal of the confidences of the Court.” The latest polling suggests that overturning Roe v. Wade is largely unpopular as 69% of Americans want to keep the abortion ruling intact, while just 30% want it completely overturned.
Wordle was created by Brooklyn software engineer Josh Wardle as a gift to his partner, and it later took off after he began posting it online. Players guess words and home in on the correct answer as the game tells them if their guesses contain letters within the word of the day. The New York Times purchased Wordle for more than $1 million in January.
