Researcher Finds Apple Keyboard Filters Political Phrases

Kauffman said he noticed the restrictions while swipe-typing and used AI tools to locate what he described as a “gray list” in Apple’s operating system. He estimated it contains about 100,000 entries, excluding Chinese characters. An independent test confirmed that attempts to enter some phrases often produced incorrect suggestions.

The list includes vulgar or offensive terms related to drugs, sex and violence, as well as politically sensitive phrases such as “right wing conspiracy,” “Tibetan independence” and “United Ireland.” Restrictions vary by language: Hindi users cannot swipe-type “Modi braggart” or “Rahul is Pappu,” French speakers cannot use “immigration too high,” and Hebrew speakers cannot type “occupied territories.” A Norwegian administrator recently reported finding terms including “al-Qaeda” and “Hooters.”

Kauffman pointed to inconsistencies, saying “read smut” works while “read gay smut” does not. He called the practice a light form of censorship that could affect communication at scale. Apple did not directly address the list’s size or contents. The company said users can type any words they want and that its keyboard is designed to avoid inappropriate suggestions.

The filtering has renewed questions about transparency and user control. David Greene of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said users should be told about such features and given the option to customize them. Apple has also faced scrutiny over predictive text, including reports of a bug that caused “Trump” to appear when users dictated “racist.” The report included information from Reuters.