New York Times changes Wordle answer that appeared 'closely connected to' Supreme Court leak


Today's original Wordle answer was a bit too relevant.
The New York Times says "some users may see an outdated answer" on its popular word game Wordle on Monday that appears "closely connected to a major recent news event."
That news event would be a leaked memo revealing last week that the Supreme Court may be set to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion access. Wordle asks players to guess a new five-letter word each day, and the original answer for Monday was "fetus."
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"This is entirely unintentional and a coincidence — today's original answer was loaded into Wordle last year," the Times said.
After discovering this word would be coming up in the game, the Times says it "switched it for as many solvers as possible." But some players may still receive the old version if they haven't refreshed their browser window.
"We want to emphasize that this is a very unusual circumstance," the Times said, adding it wants Wordle to "remain distinct from the news."
This was just the latest instance of there being two different Wordle answers for different players on one day, though it was the first time in which this was a result of breaking news. In March, the Times confirmed to Mashable that different players may have had different words that day because it was in the process of "reviewing the solutions and removing obscure or potentially insensitive words."
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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
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