In recent times, it isn’t rare that one reads a piece of news that seems so ludicrous that you check the calendar to verify if the date is 1st April. You even think the news outlet may have launched a satire section but forgot to label it. In the subsequent days, you look for corrigendum or retractions about the news but nothing of the kind occurs and you realize that what you read was factual.
The latest entry in the series of ‘this cannot possibly be
true’ category of news is related to the web-based word puzzle Wordle that was
recently acquired by the New York Times.
The NYT recently announced it has dropped the word
"fetus" from Wordle's answers in order to keep the game
"distinct from the news."
The announcement is obviously related to Politico’s leaked draft opinion by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito that
provides the rationale on why Roe v. Wade (1973), which
legalized abortion nationwide, has to be overturned.
If you thought that the dropping of the ‘offensive’ word is
the only a ridiculous part of this news. There was more.
The New York Times announced the dropping of the word with the
statement the following are key excepts:
“Some users may see an outdated answer that seems closely
connected to a major recent news event. This is entirely unintentional and a
coincidence — today’s original answer was loaded into Wordle last year.
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.
But because of the current Wordle technology, it can be
difficult to change words that have already been loaded into the game. When we
discovered last week that this particular word would be featured today, we
switched it for as many solvers as possible.”
“We want to emphasize that this is a very unusual circumstance.
When we acquired Wordle in January, it had been built for a relatively small
group of users. We’re now busy revamping Wordle’s technology so that everyone
always receives the same word. We are committed to ensuring that tens of
millions of people have a gratifying and consistent experience, every day.”
Thank you for your patience while we work on making
improvements to Wordle. We wouldn’t be here without our amazing community of
solvers.”
The NYT didn't even mention ‘the word’ that was removed. Many
readers were left scratching their heads, NBC
confirmed with the NYT that the word was ‘fetus’.
The fact that someone within the NYT felt the need to censor a
Word game is laughable, and the fact that superiors at the NYT concurred with
the suggestion is farcical. But it is most outrageous that the NYT felt the
need to put out a wishy-washy statement devoid of the word they were censoring.
Matters have clearly devolved into insanity
So why should we worry about a silly word game? Perhaps the
NYT thought some among their readers would be offended and hence removed it. Do
we not have bigger fish to fry?
What we must understand is that silly contemporary trends
among liberals provide an insight into the future. A few years ago the
idea that a high school could be fired for not using a student's
preferred gender pronouns, would seem absurd. But today it
is fact.
The word 'fetus' is not an offensive word. It merely just
means an unborn offspring of a mammal. It is a medical term.
But the climate of intolerance has reached such peaks that a
powerful newspaper feels the need to self-censor merely to appease and avoid
offending their base.
The NYT has developed a
base of 9.1 million paid subscriptions by conforming to groupthink.
With every passing day, they go deeper and deeper into the echo chamber.
Usually, the NYT leads and the subscribers follow. If however, the NYT moves even
infinitesimally to the right, the base rebels resulting in the paper
capitulating.
Back in 2019, the NYT carried, as they always do, an
unfairly critical article on President Trump, with the headline “Trump, Urges Unity Versus Racism”. The headline caused a firestorm among the NYT's subscriber
base because the headline accurately stated that Trump was doing the right
thing. These subscribers don't care for facts, they just want their hate
confirmed and preferably amplified.
Within hours, NYT capitulated and issued a
new headline: “Assailing Hate But Not Guns” but even that wasn't enough,
so the headline was amended again to “Trump Condemns White Supremacy but
Stops Short of Major Gun Controls”.
The NYT censorship of Wordle was probably a business decision.
Their actions also gave Wordle, which was gradually slipping from the public
memory, a new lease of life.
But the paper still has considerable clout over the powers
that be. Many in Washington probably form opinions based on op-ed pieces in the
NYT.
This is exactly what Orwell depicted in his celebrated dystopian
novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the totalitarian state of Oceania,
Newspeak was a language championed by the followers of the regime. Newspeak was characterized
by the elimination or alteration of certain words, the substitution of one word
for another, the interchangeability of parts of speech, and the creation of
words for political purposes.
The reason we must take NYT's censorship of Wordle seriously
is that words are building blocks to express ideas. If certain words associated
with practices that liberals deem problematic are forbidden from common
parlance. Today the forbidden word is 'fetus', tomorrow it could be some other
word. In time the vocabulary to express new ideas ceases to exist. An idea that
could have benefited civilization remains unexpressed.
History has taught us that all great scientific inventions and
discoveries that improve our standards of living exist because scientists,
inventors, and explorers feel empowered to think differently and most
importantly felt free to express themselves without restraint.
First, they go after Wordle, next they go after public utterances. Finally, someone in Washington may want to legalize these restrictions. They may even think of monitoring private conversations to ensure that the 'wrong' words are not uttered.
Soon old news items and books will have to be alerted, and so
will movies and other works of art. This is already happening, a disclaimer
was added
before the classic Gone with the Wind, and a novel by
Mark Twain was censored.
The fact remains that literature represents the values of the
time in which it was set, making changes presents is compromising the creator's
vision and diminishes the literary merit. It is also wrong to judge literary
works or people from the past by contemporary standards.
If books can be altered by policing words, governments will
step in and add restrictions that make criticism of their policies difficult.
The cycle will continue until we are left with blank pages, a blank screen, and
finally a mind devoid of thoughts.
The power to fight back against this tyranny lies with all of
us.
We must act before it is too late.
Also appears on American Thinker
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