On May 9, 2022, some Wordle players were given the answer "Fetus", while others were given "Shine". Fetus had been put on the game's schedule a year before the answer showed up, but was replaced later following the United States Supreme Court overturning of Roe V. Wade, a legal ruling that protected abortion rights. However, come the day when Shine was intended to be answer, the game's amateur coding from before it was bought out by newspaper outlet The New York Times made it difficult to ensure Fetus didn't show up whatsoever.

During Wordle's peak in popularity, a malicious Twitter bot was made, known as @wordlinator, that would insult players who posted Wordle results and tell them tomorrow's word. This bot was banned due to breaking Twitter's rules on bots sending users unsolicited messages.

Worldle editor Tracy Bennett has said that the words that have received the most complaints have been regionally-specific words, such as "parer" (an Irish term for a pencil sharpener), "condo" (an American and Canadian term for an apartment building), and "Rupee" (a currency used in multiple countries, particularly Pakistan and India). In response to these complaints, they did remove an unspecified Latin word from the game's internal list.