{"id":3961,"date":"2026-11-07T10:04:34","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T05:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3961"},"modified":"2026-11-07T10:04:34","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T05:04:34","slug":"apples-autocomplete-restrictions-include-dictator-trump-and-sleepy-joe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3961","title":{"rendered":"Apple’s autocomplete restrictions include ‘Dictator Trump’ and ‘Sleepy Joe’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Apple has an undisclosed multilingual gray list of tens of thousands of words and phrases that its iOS keyboard will \u200bnot autocomplete or swipe-type, a researcher said on Friday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The list is not a ban. iPhone users can still type what they like when drafting emails and texts. But the words on the \u200clist will not be suggested to users via autocomplete or swipe-typing in most cases.<\/p>\n

The researcher, Derik Kauffman, said the find opens a window into how Apple manages the trade-off between anticipating what hundreds of millions of iPhone users are trying to say and preventing the devices from offering offensive or politically charged suggestions to users – something he said could quietly shape how they communicate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very light-touch form of censorship,\u201d said Kauffman. \u201cBut at the scale that Apple is operating, it only takes a light touch to have a big impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the \u200bflagged words and phrases are vulgar, offensive or related to drugs, sex or violence, according to Kauffman, who discovered the list recently and has published a website, opens new tab<\/a>, itemising them. But some are politically charged, including \u201cdictator Trump\u201d \u200band \u201csleepy Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an email, Apple did not comment directly on Kauffman\u2019s findings, including the size or composition of its list, or its reasons for flagging certain political terms.<\/p>\n

It \u2060said that iPhone users always had the option to type specific words or phrases and could always override any predictive text suggestions. Apple said its keyboard was set up to avoid offering suggestions that might be inappropriate or \u200boffensive.<\/p>\n

Other phrases excluded from iOS\u2019s predictive text features include \u201cright wing conspiracy\u201d as well as \u201cTibetan independence\u201d and \u201cUnited Ireland,\u201d according to Kauffman.<\/p>\n

Non-English languages have different flagged words or phrases. In Hindi, for example, the keyboard does not allow users to swipe-type \u201cModi \u200bbraggart\u201d or \u201cRahul is Pappu,\u201d digs at India\u2019s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his leading opponent, Rahul Gandhi, respectively, according to Kauffman.<\/p>\n

He said French speakers could not swipe-type the French phrase \u201cimmigration too high\u201d and that Hebrew speakers could not swipe-type \u201coccupied territories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery major language has some version of this,\u201d Kauffman said.<\/p>\n

Kauffman said it was understandable that Apple wanted to keep users from accidentally sending obscene messages or inflammatory slogans. But he said there were inconsistencies in how Apple applied the feature. For example, he said \u201cread smut\u201d could be swipe-typed while \u201cread gay smut\u201d could \u200bnot.<\/p>\n

<\/a>How the gray list was discovered<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Kauffman said he found the list in September after noticing that his swipe-typing \u2014 the practice of gliding a finger back and forth over a keyboard rather than pecking out each word individually \u2014 would \u200bstutter over certain phrases, like \u201cbad boy\u201d or \u201cwhite man,\u201d but not \u201cbad girl\u201d or \u201cblack man.\u201d<\/p>\n

His curiosity piqued, Kauffman said he used a combination of OpenAI\u2019s Codex and Anthropic\u2019s Claude Code to hunt for a reason why, eventually stumbling on a compendium stored \u201cdeep in the bowels\u201d \u200cof Apple\u2019s operating \u2060system.<\/p>\n

He said there were different ways to count the number of gray-listed words and phrases and their various permutations, but a conservative estimate would put them at about 100,000, not including Chinese characters.<\/p>\n

Reuters tested a small subset of the phrases identified by Kauffman on an iPhone and found they were all difficult to enter through swipe-typing or were not suggested via autocomplete. Attempts to swipe-type \u201cUnited Ireland\u201d or \u201cTibetan independence\u201d often yielded \u201cUnited Iceland\u201d or \u201cTibetan independences,\u201d for example.<\/p>\n

Trying to swipe-type \u201cwhite man\u201d would yield \u201cwhite mean,\u201d while \u201cred man\u201d or \u201cblue man\u201d could be swipe-typed without difficulty. \u201cSleepy Joe\u201d would yield \u201cSleepy hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDictator Trump\u201d could be swipe-typed, but \u201ctrump\u201d was lowercase and the phrase was not suggested in autocomplete \u2014 the keyboard instead suggested \u201cdictator trumps.\u201d Swipe-typing \u201cread gay smut\u201d \u200bwould yield \u201cRead gay Smit.\u201d \u201cRead smut\u201d could be swipe-typed with no \u200bissue.<\/p>\n

Matt Suiche, an engineer at agentic AI cybersecurity \u2060company Tolmo, said he was able to independently recover the same gray list and cross-reference Kauffman\u2019s findings against Apple\u2019s internal data. He said he got a near-perfect match.<\/p>\n

Suiche said the Apple list had been hidden in plain sight for years, providing an interesting look at how \u201chuman communication has been potentially influenced and filtered for years inside messaging apps.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>A call for transparency<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Kauffman is not alone in having picked up on the nudges from iOS\u2019s predictive text feature. Over the years, social media users have wondered why they could \u200bnot swipe-type certain phrases<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this \u2060week, a Norwegian systems administrator independently discovered, opens new tab<\/a>, a list of words on Apple\u2019s gray list, including \u201cal-Qaeda,\u201d \u201cAuschwitz\u201d and \u201cHooters,\u201d but the existence of a wider list of sensitive phrases is reported here for the first time.<\/p>\n

Apple, like other tech companies, has previously run into trouble when predictive technology suggests embarrassing or controversial texts to users.<\/p>\n

Alphabet-owned Google\u2019s autocomplete feature has regularly attracted criticism \u2014 and sometimes even litigation<\/a> \u2014 over its suggested search terms.<\/p>\n

Last year, Apple drew media attention<\/a> when users reported that dictating the word \u201cracist\u201d to their iPhones would \u2060briefly cause the \u200bword \u201cTrump\u201d to flash across their screens. Apple said at the time that the problem was an error and had been fixed.<\/p>\n

David Greene, the \u200bsenior counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties group, said that while a part of him found the word list \u201ccreepy\u201d and he wondered about Apple\u2019s judgment calls, he could see an argument for it being a useful way to curb unwanted or inflammatory suggestions.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if \u200bthey are going to do it, this is something users should be really well aware of and have some ability to customise,\u201d Greene said. \u201cThis is something that should not be secret.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apple has an undisclosed multilingual gray list of tens of thousands of words and phrases that its iOS keyboard will \u200bnot autocomplete or swipe-type, a researcher said on Friday. The list is not a ban. iPhone users can still type what they like when drafting emails and texts. But the words on the \u200clist will not be suggested to users via autocomplete or swipe-typing in most cases. The researcher, Derik Kauffman, said the find opens a window into how Apple manages the trade-off between anticipating what hundreds of millions of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}