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Apple's iPhone keyboard carries a hidden list of roughly 100,000 words and phrases that it will not suggest or reliably swipe-type, according to independent researcher Derik Kauffman. Coverage on November 6 and 7, 2026, based on a Reuters report, says the list includes slurs and sexual terms but also political phrases such as "dictator Trump" and "sleepy Joe". Apple has not explained why political expressions are included.
Key facts
- Kauffman, founder of the start-up Blacklight, noticed odd swipe-typing behavior in September and traced it to a file inside iOS, The Next Web reports.
- His conservative estimate is about 100,000 entries, excluding Chinese characters, with versions for every major language, according to The Verge.
- He used OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Code to find the list, which is stored as a hash table that he converted back to text.
- Matt Suiche, an engineer at security firm Tolmo, independently recovered a closely matching list, per The Next Web.
- Typing the words letter by letter still works. Autocomplete skips them and swipe-typing may substitute other words.
How the filter behaves
Macworld explains that iOS matches hashes of word IDs against a set of banned hashes. On a match, the keyboard will not suggest the word, and swiping either inputs a different word or replaces an earlier word with one that has a similar swipe pattern. Macworld also describes a separate dictionary mechanism that labels words as vulgar, offensive or sensitive. Vulgar words appear only after a user types them three times.
Examples vary by outlet. The Verge cites "left wing conspiracy" turning into "left wrong conspiracy". Digital Trends says Reuters' own testing turned "Tibetan independence" and "United Ireland" into "Tibetan independences" and "United Iceland".
The list also looks inconsistent. The Next Web notes that "bad boy" and "white man" gave Kauffman trouble while "bad girl" and "black man" did not. Digital Trends adds that terms mocking Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi are covered too. The Next Web notes it did not independently test the list.
Why it matters
The dispute is less about whether Apple filters profanity, which it has long done, than about transparency and scope. David Greene of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told Reuters that users should be informed about the list and able to change it. Digital Trends reports that he also called part of it "creepy" while acknowledging the case for limiting inflammatory suggestions.
Apple's position, relayed through Reuters, is that the keyboard is designed to avoid suggesting offensive or inappropriate language and that users can type any word they want. Macworld argues the motive is likely avoiding lawsuits and bad publicity, such as a keyboard completing a sentence about Nazis with a positive word, but still calls the approach overreaching.
What to watch next
The open questions are whether Apple will document how entries are chosen and whether it will add a setting to turn the filtering off, as Macworld suggests. Kauffman has posted the full lists online, so further analysis of individual languages is likely. Apple has so far offered only a general statement, and The Verge says it did not immediately answer its own request for comment.
