Have you ever been in the process of typing out a text message and your iPhone autocorrects a misspelled word? Of course you have. Sometimes, instead of accurately adjusting the misspelled word, your phone will put forward an entirely different one. Sometimes it can be embarrassing (for instance, changing “Mondays” to “Manboobs”).

Still, what if you slightly misspell a word that is kind of controversial, but you’re phone won't correct it (for instance, if you type “suicidw” but your phone won’t correct it to “suicide”)?

It turns out, there is a whole list of words that Apple has deemed too controversial to recognize. A few examples of those words include: “rape,” “Aryan,” “murder,” “virginity” and “abortion.” Once spelled correctly, the interface does not put one of those red squiggly lines underneath these words (claiming it to be misspelled, and thus not a word), but it also won’t help the user type them correctly. So, what does this mean?

Apparently, Apple doesn’t want to be connected to such touchy words. They are probably trying to tread lightly so that they don’t offend anyone, keeping customers loyal. Digging even deeper, it has even been reported that Siri (the voice-activated user support system) has difficulties advising users on where they can receive an abortion.

Thus, it appears that Apple is merely trying to remain neutral on such hot-button topics in order to maintain revenue. After all, everyone uses Apple products—the left, the right and everyone in between. They wouldn’t want customers’ beliefs to conflict with their own, so they just avoid those sensitive subjects.

Nonetheless, no matter how annoying autocorrect can be, this type of censorship is wrong. We are a democratic society where speech is supposed to be unrestrained. For Apple to treat such touchy words differently is feeble-minded and leans on being unconstitutional, limiting one of our primary rights as Americans. 

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