It’s not a ban, but it’s not nothing. iPhone keyboard skips certain phrases in predictive text, from “Sleepy Joe” to “United Ireland,” and even swipe-typed references to Modi and Rahul Gandhi in Hindi.
BY PC Bureau
November 6: Your iPhone keyboard may be more selective than you realize. A newly uncovered, undocumented list of roughly 100,000 words and phrases shows that iOS holds back certain terms from autocomplete and swipe-typing suggestions, and the list reaches well beyond profanity into politics, according to a Reuters report.
Researcher Derek Kauffman, who found the list, called it a “very light-touch form of censorship,” adding that at Apple’s scale, even a light touch can have a big impact.
This is not a ban. Users can still type any word or phrase by hand in emails and messages. The restriction only means the keyboard generally won’t suggest these terms through predictive text or swipe-to-type.
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What’s on the list
Most entries are vulgar, offensive, or tied to drugs, sex and violence. But the Iphone list also covers politically sensitive material, including “dictator Trump” and “sleepy Joe,” the nickname Trump has long used for his predecessor Joe Biden. Other flagged phrases include “right wing conspiracy,” “Tibetan independence” and “United Ireland.”
India is part of the picture too. Each language has its own list, and in Hindi, the keyboard will not let users swipe-type references to Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi, the Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition. French speakers can’t swipe-type “immigration too high,” and Hebrew speakers hit a wall with “occupied territories.”
“Every major language has some version of this,” Kauffman told Reuters. He accepted that iPhone/ Apple may be trying to stop people from accidentally sending obscene messages or inflammatory slogans, but pointed to “inconsistencies” in how the feature works. For instance, users can swipe-type “read smut” but not “read gay smut.”
Apple reportedly maintains a hidden list of nearly 100,000 words and phrases that its iPhone keyboard avoids suggesting through autocorrect and swipe typing, according to security researcher Derek Kauffman.
The list includes profanity, drug-related terms and politically sensitive phrases targeting public figures and political movements.
Kauffman says the restrictions affect multiple languages, including English, Hindi, French and Hebrew. Users can still manually type the blocked words.
The restrictions extend beyond offensive language. According to Kauffman, politically sensitive expressions such as “Dictator Trump,” “Sleepy Joe,” “United Ireland” and “Tibetan independence” are also affected.
Reuters independently tested several examples, while cybersecurity engineer Matt Suiche reportedly recovered a nearly identical list.
Kauffman estimates the database contains approximately 100,000 entries, excluding Chinese characters.
Apple says its keyboard is designed to avoid inappropriate suggestions, but users should have greater transparency and control over how predictive text filters their language. $AAPL
— Himanshi 👸 (@HimanshiTech) November 6, 2026
How it came to light
Kauffman found the list in September, when he noticed swipe-typing stumbling over some phrases, such as “bad boy” and “white man,” but not “bad girl” or “black man.” To dig into the pattern, he used OpenAI’s Codex and Anthropic’s Claude Code, and eventually traced a list buried “deep in the bowels” of Apple’s operating system. Depending on how word combinations and permutations are counted, he estimates about 100,000 entries, not including Chinese characters.
Reuters independently confirmed the findings, with phrases like “United Ireland” and “Sleepy Joe” failing its swipe-typing tests. Separately, Matt Suiche, an engineer at agentic AI cybersecurity firm Tolmo, recovered the same list and compared it against Apple’s internal data, getting a near-perfect match. He said the list had been “hidden in plain sight” for years, offering a glimpse of how human communication may have been shaped and filtered inside messaging apps.
Transparency questions
Users have questioned iOS predictive text limits for years, and many have shared examples on social media of phrases they couldn’t swipe-type. Earlier this week, a Norwegian systems administrator independently found a list of flagged words, including “al-Qaeda,” “Auschwitz” and “Hooters.” Still, the discovery of a far broader list of sensitive phrases is a first.
iPhone/ Apple isn’t alone in facing scrutiny. Google has repeatedly drawn criticism, and even lawsuits, over controversial autocomplete suggestions. Apple itself made headlines last year when users reported that dictating “racist” briefly made “Trump” appear on screen. The company called it an error and said it was fixed.
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