Apple admits iPhone glitch replaces 'racist' with 'Trump'

In February 2025, reports emerged about a disturbing glitch affecting the iPhone's voice-to-text feature, which inaccurately suggested the word 'Trump' when users dictated the word 'racist'. This issue quickly gained attention on various social media platforms after users began sharing videos demonstrating the problem. The incident was particularly significant as it sparked outrage among conservative commentators and supporters of former President Donald Trump, who interpreted the glitch as evidence of anti-Trump bias within the Apple company.  Apple responded to the outcry by acknowledging that the dictation feature was indeed experiencing a bug, which was partly due to the phonetic similarity between certain words that begin with the consonant 'r'. The company indicated that this issue could lead to incorrect suggestions in its speech recognition models, where the word 'Trump' might be briefly displayed before being replaced by the intended word. Tech experts from various news outlets, including NBC News, confirmed being able to replicate the glitch on multiple iPhone devices, although not every attempt yielded the same result.  Concerns about technological biases in major companies have been on the rise, with this incident serving as a continuation of an ongoing narrative. Just a month prior, Meta faced backlash when users reported being automatically subscribed to pages associated with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The company clarified that this was a routine practice during presidential transitions, implying no intentional bias was at play. Furthermore, similar complaints regarding political content surfaced for Amazon's Alexa, raising broader discussions about fairness and neutrality among tech giants.  The context around this particular bug in Apple's dictation feature highlights a growing sensitivity among users to perceived biases and issues involving political speech. With many influential figures asserting their concerns about tech companies having significant control over political dialogue, calls for greater transparency and accountability are becoming increasingly urgent in public discourse. As Apple promised a timely fix for the glitch, the implications of such technological errors extend beyond simple technical faults; they touch on serious conversations regarding free speech and the role of technology in shaping public opinion.