Apple's Secret Keyboard List Filters Over 100,000 Words
Translated & summarized from Israel Hayom by baba
Apple's iOS keyboard reportedly filters over 100,000 words and phrases, preventing them from being suggested or recognized by swipe-typing. Discovered by security researcher Derek Kaufman, the secret list includes offensive terms and politically sensitive phrases, such as "Dictator Trump" and "occupied territories" in Hebrew. While Apple states users can bypass suggestions and the feature aims to avoid offensive content, digital rights groups criticize the lack of transparency and user control over this subtle censorship.
The story in 6 lines · by baba
- Apple's iOS keyboard reportedly filters over 100,000 words and phrases from suggestions and swipe-typing.
- The secret list includes politically sensitive terms like "Dictator Trump" and "Tibetan independence."
- Hebrew phrase "occupied territories" is also blocked on the iPhone keyboard.
- Security researcher Derek Kaufman discovered the hidden filtering mechanism.
- Digital rights groups criticize the lack of transparency and user control.
- Apple states the feature aims to avoid offensive content and can be bypassed.
Apple maintains a secret, multilingual list of over 100,000 words and phrases that its iOS keyboard will not suggest for auto-completion or allow for swipe-typing, according to an exclusive report by Reuters. Security researcher Derek Kaufman, founder of the Blacklight startup, discovered the hidden mechanism, which has been independently verified by international cyber experts. While users can still type any word letter by letter, those on the list will never appear as suggestions or be recognized by the swipe gesture.
Kaufman stated that the majority of blocked terms are intended to prevent offensive language, including profanity, slurs, and terms related to drugs, sex, or violence. However, a significant portion of the list extends into politically sensitive areas. Examples include phrases like "Dictator Trump," "Sleepy Joe," and "Right wing conspiracy," which are either blocked or autocorrected to different words, such as "Sleepy hope" for "Sleepy Joe." Politically charged nationalistic terms like "Tibetan independence" and "United Ireland" are also reportedly removed from the prediction engine.
The swipe-typing feature on iPhones analyzes finger movement to predict intended words. When a word is added to Apple's "blacklist," the algorithm is instructed to ignore its existence. If a user attempts to swipe a blocked phrase, the keyboard will generate a different word, for instance, turning "United Ireland" into "United Iceland." This subtle censorship can influence public discourse, as users may abandon typing a phrase or rephrase it rather than manually correct the keyboard.
Kaufman's investigation began when he noticed his iPhone keyboard struggling to recognize certain phrases while easily recognizing similar ones. Using advanced AI tools, he located an encrypted data file within Apple's iOS system containing tens of thousands of entries. Cyber expert Matt Swys from Tolmo independently confirmed these findings by cross-referencing them with Apple's system code.
Apple, in response to Reuters, declined to comment on the list's size, composition, or the reasons for including specific political terms. The company stated that iPhone users can always type specific words and bypass predictive text suggestions, and that the keyboard is designed to avoid inappropriate or offensive terms. However, digital rights organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argue that such filtering mechanisms should be transparent and user-controllable. David Greene, senior legal counsel at the EFF, called the system "chilling" and emphasized that users must be fully aware of and able to adjust or disable such filtering.
Kaufman described this as a very subtle form of censorship, noting that Apple's scale means even minor filtering can have a massive impact on human communication. The revelation raises concerns about whether the words users choose to send are truly their own or have been subtly curated by Apple's code.