Twitter has banned @wordlinator, a bot that replied to people’s Wordle posts with rude messages that include spoilers for the next day’s game. The account’s spoilers appeared to be accurate (the key is easily accessible in the game’s code, so it’s not necessarily a surprise), which could end up ruining the game for anyone who sees them.
For anyone who’s managed to avoid it, Wordle is a game where you get six chances to guess a five-letter word — if you’re interested, you can learn how to play it here. The answer is the same for everyone playing, and it only changes once a day. The game also has an interesting sharing mechanic, where you can copy and paste a series of emoji to let people know how easy or hard it was for you to guess the word of the day. If you’ve seen a ton of yellow, gray, and green squares on Twitter, they’re probably either Wordle results or a joke about Wordle.
The bot wasn’t well-received by Wordle fans.
Given that the game is about guessing a word, knowing what the next one will be can ruin the entire point. It’s also one of those things that’s almost impossible to put out of your head — when you’ve seen what the next word is, you probably won’t be able to forget it no matter how hard you try.
While this particular bot is gone, Twitter could become a dangerous place for people who want to post their Wordle results — the internet has already figured out how to predict what the next word will be, and someone else could make another bot to do the same thing as Wordlinator. (If you do end up seeing a new version of the bot, it’s best to block it to keep it from spoiling you and your followers.)
Before Wordlinator was banned, The Verge reached out to Twitter to ask if it was in violation of the platform’s rules. The company didn’t immediately reply, but the bot seemed to break at least one of the standards laid out on Twitter’s Automation Rules page. Under the word “Don’t!” it lists “spam or bother users, or otherwise send them unsolicited messages.”
If you’re tired of seeing Wordle tweets and want to know how to mute them, we’ve got a how-to for that as well. I recommend taking that route over trying to make people feel bad for enjoying things.
