Apple maintains an unpublished list of tens of thousands of words and phrases in various languages that the iPhone keyboard avoids suggesting when auto-filling text or swiping. The existence of the list, which includes everything from vulgar expressions to politically charged phrases, was discovered by an independent researcher.
This is not a ban on the use of words. iPhone owners can type whatever they want in messages and emails. However, certain words do not appear, in most cases, in the keyboard suggestions, even when the user tries to form them with the auto-prediction function.
According to researcher Derek Kaufman, who discovered the list, Apple has not made public its existence or the criteria by which it selects the words it includes.
The vast majority of the words and phrases on the list are related to insults, swearing, drugs, sex or violence. However, they also include politically sensitive terms, such as "dictator Trump" and "sleepy Joe", which refer to Donald Trump and former US President Joe Biden, respectively.
When contacted by Reuters, Apple did not comment on Kaufman's findings or provide details on the size and content of the list. However, it said users can always type in words and phrases they want, bypassing the keyboard suggestions. It said the feature is designed to avoid suggestions that could be considered offensive or inappropriate.
The list includes, among others, the phrases “right-wing conspiracy,” “Tibetan independence,” and “united Ireland.” Exceptions vary by language. In Hindi, for example, the keyboard does not allow swiping phrases such as “Modi the braggart” and “Rahul is Pappu” (from Pappu, an Indian diminutive), offensive descriptions aimed at Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his main political opponent Rahul Gandhi, respectively.
Similarly, according to Kaufman, French-speaking users cannot swipe the phrase "excessive immigration," while Hebrew words corresponding to the phrase "occupied territories" are not supported by this feature. "Every major language has its own version of this list," the researcher noted.
He acknowledges that Apple has reasons to prevent some obscene messages or offensive slogans from automatically appearing, but points out that the implementation is inconsistent. For example, the phrase "read pornographic material" can be formed normally, while adding the word "homosexual" prevents it from being automatically printed.
"This is a very mild form of censorship. However, at the scale at which Apple operates, even such a subtle intervention can have a significant impact," Kaufman noted.
Kaufman said he discovered the list in September when he noticed that the swipe typing feature struggled with certain phrases, such as "bad boy" and "white man," while working well with similar phrases like "bad girl" and "black man."
This observation led him to further research. With the help of OpenAI's Codex tools and Anthropic's Claude Code, he searched for the cause of the malfunction and eventually found a vast directory hidden deep within Apple's operating system.
The number of words and phrases depends on how they are counted and their different variations, but according to him, a conservative estimate puts the total at around 100,000, not counting Chinese characters. ©LAPSI.al
