Apple (AAPL.O) has an undisclosed multilingual gray list of tens of thousands of words and phrases that its iOS keyboard will not autocomplete or swipe-type, a researcher said on Friday.
Most of the flagged 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 itemizing them. But some are politically charged, including “dictator Trump” and “sleepy Joe.”
Kauffman is not alone in having picked up on the nudges from iOS’s predictive text feature. Over the years, social media users have wondered why they could not swipe-type certain phrases. Alphabet-owned (GOOGL.O) Google’s autocomplete feature has regularly attracted criticism — and sometimes even litigation — over its suggested search terms.
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 “read smut” could be swipe-typed while “read gay smut” could not. Earlier this week, a Norwegian systems administrator independently discovered a list of words on Apple’s gray list, including “al-Qaeda,” “Auschwitz” and “Hooters,” but the existence of a wider list of sensitive phrases is reported here for the first time. Last year, Apple drew media attention when users reported that dictating the word “racist” to their iPhones would briefly cause the word “Trump” to flash across their screens. Apple said at the time that the problem was an error and had been fixed.
Apple, like other tech companies, has previously run into trouble when predictive technology suggests embarrassing or controversial texts to users.
Non-English languages have different flagged words or phrases.
Other phrases excluded from iOS’s predictive text features include “right wing conspiracy” as well as “Tibetan independence” and “United Ireland,” according to Kauffman. In Hindi, for example, the keyboard does not allow users to swipe-type “Modi braggart” or “Rahul is Pappu,” digs at India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his leading opponent, Rahul Gandhi, respectively, according to Kauffman.
