Type "sleepy Joe", "dictator Trump" or "Tibetan independence" on an iPhone and you get no auto-complete suggestions and no swipe typing, because iOS appears to carry a hidden "gray list" of terms.
Researcher Derek Kauffman found the list, and an independent cybersecurity engineer verified it. It is thought to hold at least 100,000 words and phrases. Other reported entries include "NSA spies", "question your sexuality" and "Australia is a very bad place". References to drug use also seem to be unavailable through both features.
The restriction is narrow. You can still type any of these phrases and send them in a message. iOS just won't offer to finish them or let you swipe them out. In an email, Apple did not comment on the list directly, but it acknowledged that the keyboard is set up to avoid suggestions that might be inappropriate or offensive.
That explanation fits some entries better than others. Keeping crude language out of suggestions is a familiar choice for keyboard makers. A phrase like "Tibetan independence" or "NSA spies" is a harder fit for the word "offensive", and the mix of political, sexual and drug-related entries is what makes the list worth a second look.
Kauffman's concern is scale. "It's a very light-touch form of censorship," he said. "But at the scale that Apple is operating, it only takes a light touch to have a big impact." David Greene of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said he could see the thinking behind a gray list, but that users should be well aware of it and able to customize it.
There is a recent precedent for distrust here. iPhones were reported to change "Trump" to "racist" during dictation, and what happened was not clear at the time. That was speech-to-text, a different system from typed suggestions, but both show how much unseen automation sits between a person and the words on their screen. The open question is whether Apple will say what is on this list and give users the control Greene describes.