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Researcher uncovers more than 100,000 phrases blocked from iOS suggestions

A list of more than 100,000 words and phrases blocked from iOS autocomplete and swipe-typing includes political terms such as “dictator Trump” and “covid was a hoax,” researcher Derik Kauffman said. Users can still enter the words letter by letter, but they may not appear as suggestions or may be altered during swipe-typing.

Researcher uncovers more than 100,000 phrases blocked from iOS suggestions

Kauffman published the list online, with separate entries for different languages. Most blocked terms are offensive, including slurs and words related to sex and drugs. The list also includes “illegal immigrant,” “sleepy Joe” and “left wing conspiracy,” along with phrases such as “Santa isn’t real” and “iMessage isn’t working.”

The filters are not always consistent: “bad girl” is blocked, while “bad boy” is not. Kauffman also found that swipe-typing can change a phrase; “left wing conspiracy,” for example, may become “left wrong conspiracy.”

Reuters reported that Kauffman used OpenAI’s Codex and Anthropic’s Claude Code to locate the list within iOS. He said on his website that it was stored as a hash table, which he converted back into text. Another researcher told Reuters they had independently obtained the same list.

Apple told Reuters its keyboard is designed to avoid potentially inappropriate or offensive suggestions. The company said users can still type what they want or override predictive-text suggestions. Apple did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

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