Twitter is a popular social networking platform that has 166 million active daily users with a 24% year-over-year growth. Each day people send more than 500 million tweets including sensitive content. Twitter isn’t a visual social networking site like Facebook and Instagram rather Twitter is more geared towards the text.
However, it does support images and videos. A lot of people and businesses share images and videos on Twitter as text-only tweets don’t deliver the message completely.
People post all types of content on Twitter and this includes sensitive content that isn’t appropriate for all age groups. When more than 500 million tweets are published each day, there are fair enough chances of people posting sensitive content.
Twitter is quite flexible as it lets you control and manage the type of content you see. It allows users to turn off sensitive content and lets you mark your content sensitive if it isn’t suitable for some audiences.
If you aren’t sure how to control sensitive content on Twitter, this article explains everything in detail.
What is Sensitive Content?
Twitter defines sensitive content as the content that others may not want to see including violence and nudity. Any content that Twitter users don’t wish to see is considered sensitive and it could be related to anything. However, Twitter has explicitly mentioned nudity and violence as sensitive content.
This doesn’t mean people can’t post and share sensitive content on Twitter rather they must mark their content sensitive if they’re publishing it. This will help Twitter filter and hide sensitive content from people’s feeds and will show it to users who have opted to see sensitive content.
How to Turn Off Sensitive Content
Sensitive content is turned off by default for Twitter users. The content that is marked sensitive by other users come with a warning in your Twitter feed:
And such profiles are hidden by default:
If it is enabled for your account, you can turn off sensitive content with a few clicks.
Log in to your Twitter account and click More from the left sidebar:
Click Settings and privacy:
Click Privacy and safety to open settings:
You’ll see a lot of different settings on the right side of your screen. Click Content you see to open content settings:
The next page is where you’ll be able to control sensitive content settings. Uncheck the box that says Display media that may contain sensitive content. Unchecking it will turn off sensitive content and you won’t see any type of sensitive content in your feed (not with warning signs as discussed above):
You can also turn off sensitive content from your Twitter search. Click Search settings to control what type of content to hide from search results:
You’ll see two different options with checkboxes:
- Hide sensitive content
- Remove blocked and muted accounts
It is recommended to check both. Checking the ‘Hide sensitive content’ will remove it from your search feed. Check the box and the settings will be saved automatically:
Your settings will be saved and you won’t see sensitive content anymore. It must be noted that only tweets with media (images and videos) are turned off, these settings do not apply to the text. You will see sensitive text content and there is no way to turn it off.
How Sensitive Content is Identified by Twitter
There are several ways to identify sensitive content. Let’s take a closer look at how Twitter identifies sensitive content:
1. Self-Reporting
Twitter users are asked to mark their content sensitive if they publish content that others might not wish to see (e.g. nudity). These settings are found in your privacy and safety:
For example, if you want to post sensitive content, you must check this box so it can be shown to the right audience.
There is a potential problem with self-reporting sensitive content. It forces users not to mark their content sensitive even if they’re posting it.
Once selected, all media will be marked sensitive. Even if a user posts an image of a tree, it will be marked sensitive by Twitter. If you post sensitive content on and off, you have no choice but to either make all media sensitive or none of it.
There isn’t any option between the two extremes.
2. User Reporting
Twitter also identifies and filters sensitive content when users report it. If you see sensitive content in your feed after turning it off, you can report it and mark it sensitive photo or video:
These reports are reviewed by Twitter and if the content is found sensitive, it will be either removed or marked sensitive by Twitter.
If Twitter receives a lot of reports about a specific account, it will mark it sensitive and the change is permanent. The account user, in this case, can’t access sensitive content settings as it is disabled permanently by Twitter.
3. Twitter Algorithm
Twitter also uses its algorithm and filters to look for sensitive content. Even if nobody reports such content, it is highly likely that Twitter will find it and mark it sensitive.
Does Turning Off Sensitive Content Work
Generally, it does.
However, after turning off sensitive content, you might see it. This is because:
- A lot of users don’t mark their content sensitive (as discussed above)
- Others might not have reported or flagged it
- The Twitter algorithm didn’t find it yet or it somehow skipped the filter.
So, there are decent chances of seeing sensitive content despite turning it off. And when you do, your best bet is to report it so it can be taken care of.
Twitter doesn’t want to mark or block content rather it has given the right to its users. If everyone follows rules, only people who wish to see sensitive content will see it while others won’t see it. This is only possible when content is marked honestly.
Final Words
Twitter tries its best to keep its platform user-friendly. It is very particular about sensitive content and doesn’t hesitate to take action against users who violate its terms (including account suspension and termination).
The good thing is that it has given full access to its users. You can turn off or on sensitive content whenever you like. Those who publish sensitive content can mark their content accordingly. This keeps the platform clean and transparent.
Featured Image: Pexels
