Earlier today, our colleagues at Deadspin discovered something strange about the new gif search in iOS 10's iMessage: Inadvertently do the wrong search, for, say, the word “huge,” and you could be looking straight at a stranger’s genitals (or a cartoon horse’s, as the case may be).
Now, it appears that Apple is frantically banning specific search terms, and struggling to remove certain images from other searches. Some obviously NSFW searches like “fisting,” “blowjob,” and “terrorist how-to” were seemingly banned right from launch, but other terms are being pulled as this post is being written. So far Gizmodo has noticed at least a dozen terms scrubbed or banned.
For example, “futa”—an abbreviation for futanari, the Japanese term usually applied to hermaphroditic animated pornography—returned several NSFW gifs earlier today. An hour later, the term appears to have been blacklisted. The process seems to be ongoing and occurring rapidly, as some previously kosher searches like “shlong” are now banned, while results for “sideboob” and “ballgag” are noticeably fewer and more sanitized.
As Deadspin noted, the bans also extend to seemingly innocuous terms like “huge,” which was returning copious amounts of porn. Other terms not specific to pornography continue to cause problems for Apple’s moderation, including “bounce,” which features several lascivious gifs of women, at least one one of whom appears to be topless.
We’ve reached out to Apple with questions about the sudden moderation spree, and will update if we hear back.
UPDATE 4:02pm EST: “Nipslip” has been banned. At 3:45pm EST the term returned a handful of results, one of which was NSFW, though it was unsendable for reasons unknown. By 3:51pm EST the search was banned completely. The same term with the space included (“nip slip”) was unsearchable already.
UPDATE 11:02am EST: As of this morning the following terms have been banned from iMessage gif search:
- Nipple clamps
- Sideboob
- Eating ass
- Creepshot
- Yiff
- Ballgag
- Incest
- Vore
- Crush fetish
- Bomb instructions
- Meat whistle
If you’re still able to search any highly-questionable terms, leave them in the comments below. Likewise let us know if totally normal searches are still pulling up a whole bunch of porn, My Little Pony-related or otherwise.