iOS keyboard's hidden blocklist cracked: 4,500+ secretly banned swipe phrases exposed

TimDarcet · x · 2026-11-08

A user reverse-engineered iOS keyboard's encrypted files and extracted a hidden blocklist of 4,500+ banned phrases, covering English and pinyin-sensitive terms.
When triggered via swipe typing, the keyboard mispredicts or even rewrites what you typed: typing "Left wing" then swiping "conspiracy" forces "wing" to become "wrong"; swiping "Santa isn't real" or "iMessage isn't working" gets blocked outright.
Alleged double standards: "bad boy" and "I'm black" swipe fine, but "bad girl" and "I'm white" are silently intercepted; certain pinyin-sensitive words also kill the suggestion bar.
Easy to verify yourself: try swiping "Santa isn't real" and see what your keyboard spits out.

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