Can we hide certain words? Trigger warning

[Diamondsy]

It's probably been discussed before but I couldn't find the threads.

Can we hide certain words so that either the comment is hidden or collapsed with an expanding button or arrow if we wish to expand it and read it anyway or have the thread hidden totally if a triggering word we flagged up in the settings to hide is part of an OP or title?

Why? Because although it's great we can hide certain boards, posters often don't stick to posting under the 'correct' board and even on threads that talk about something non triggering comments can sometimes stray into other topics as the discussion develops and occasionally because the poster posted on the wrong thread. Sometimes a light hearted thread ends up with someone commenting mentioning Child Abuse or sexual assault. Some people put the trigger in the title which is already causing distress.

Some words are triggering leading to a flashback of trauma. Tiktok has the option to hide certain keywords from the 'feed'.

MN is a resource and instead of putting the onus on the reader to 'toughen up' which might take months or years of therapy why:

a. isolate them meanwhile from an important and supportive platform where they might need to access advice for other things like breastfeeding but don't want to read about weight loss or sexual assault
b. Trigger them unnecessarily. MN often said on deletion massages is that they don't want to make anyone's life harder than it needs to be, it would make the website more aware, responsible and friendly to users well being if it gave the option to not see certain contents by filtering out certain triggering words.

Requests to hide annoying threads like the Royal Wedding for non fans or that posters stick to a board are nothing new, but I think hiding actually triggering words like rape, weight, miscarriage is more than an minor irritation.

I think when you read things that anger or upset you it affects your mood and then how you comment and react to threads so not exposing readers to others trauma or triggering content that they didn't elect to read would help make the website a more friendly atmosphere.
There are people who actively avoid watching the news if war news upsetting them, but why ask them to ditch the TV all together when there are other programs they could enjoy and benefit from watching? This is how I feel about being able to filter contents further.

God no. And there are a few topics (or words if you like) that I find really difficult due to past events and fears about the future. If I'm feeling strong I read the post. If not, I skip over it. I don't want to be treated like a 3-year-old.

I don't think this is a viable idea.

If you can't even read a word how are you going to sit and type in the word, and all possible variations and acronyms in order to filter them out?

I think on a chat site, chat should be expected, we can't censor absolutely everything, although MN are very good at adding a TW to threads when asked. It's not realistic to never see or hear particular words at all.

No thanks. We'd end up with a board like a Swiss cheese because of all the trigger words. I mean, when TFL can ban a poster because it has a cake in it and that infringes their policy on banning junk food ads, there'd be no end to what people want to avoid.

No. Ridiculous idea.

I think if someone is going to be that traumatised by inadvertently stumbling on a triggering word, then perhaps they need to stay away from talk forums.

I wouldn’t support this as a general thing, only if it was something where individual posters could choose trigger words to hide. Otherwise no one with any helpful experience would ever see the threads and post on them. Already there are lots of threads entitled things like “does anyone where to get a” well even if I did know I’m not going to tell you because I’m not going to bother reading your thread unless you put the key word in the title.

I don't think it is an unreasonable request per se. Anyone who doesn't want to use it doesn't have to after all.

A user could set up trigger words.
Then before displaying, each individual post is checked for all those words and if it contains one then displays 'This post is hidden due to user's filters'.

However, it would probably have quite a niche set of clientelle, and it may well not be worth MN's coding resources to implement it over and above other features wanted by a larger percentage of users.

I can imagine that filtering every post word by word (as opposed to just threads or boards) could slow up the performance of MN even if someone has no filters set (it would still need to check whether to filter iyswim).

Nope.

Words have meaning that most people understand the meaning of. Some words are exceptionally powerful.

Policing everyday words and language to accommodate an extremely small minority is a slippery slope to bullshit social control to be honest.

This.

Yep.

There's a difference between having a specific need or want as a minority that likely should be a accommodated by a majority to provide equality of access and a desire to impose something on a majority when there is no need to do so.

I think many of you are misunderstanding the request.
The OP isn't saying that words like miscarriage or rape should be banned for everyone to see, just that an individual user can set up their own filter list.
It isn't asking to police any one else's words.

I think it would be practical to implement - all of the words you've mentioned have multiple synonyms, some of which are also used in regular conversation on other banal topics (so if discussions about miscarriage are triggering, do you also filter out "loss" which will mean you miss all sorts of threads).

If it becomes popular, then users start to avoid using those words to evade the filters and then you're back where you started.

No one needs to 'evade filters'. It would be up to an individual to set their own. No one else would have a clue what others had filtered out.

There's a debate that trigger warnings don't actually work. No one can guarantee that something will trigger a negative response. And simply stating that there is a trigger warning night he a trigger in itself...

But in response to hiding words that might trigger you isn't that just being an ostrich and hiding your head in the sand? Using Mumsnet you need to be prepared that these topics will be raised and be discussed by people who aren't triggered by them but still may be invested in the issue.

Just think of the whole forum as potentially triggering, and if you need to hide from that then that's what you need to do. As has been noted upthread it's asking for resources to be spent on a small minority with no benefit to the majority.

The internet is optional not mandatory.

With absolute respect OP, I think you need to develop a thicker skin. You can shield yourself from everything. There's insensitivity everywhere and the best way to protect yourself from it, is to change how you react to it

This forum uses cuting edge technology so this should be really simple to introduce.

What if the trigger word isn't in the title? there'd have to be a system that can check every post for words people don't want to read in that case, surely.

This

I think it's a good idea. The point of it is to give people choice - it's not like being in a pub and requesting that nobody around you speak, it's a website and a functionality that could be pretty easily implemented.

Easy job, with a net positive: people can filter to their heart's content.

For the people who being triggered by something would be really, really hard for them, they'd retain access to a relatively niche (in terms of user base) website without having to hide away as a result of trauma etc. For everyone else, annoyances and things you don't want to see would disappear (I would personally mute every thread that had the word 'naice' in it, for example, because it makes me feel murderous). Win-win.

I think it's always worth asking.

Perhaps MN have an uni computer science student summer placement.

They could see how much effort it would be.
You'd need an update to the 'my settings' page.
You'd need a bit of software to match against the words to be hidden and then a message to say post hidden.

Plus all the testing on different platforms etc.

I think thinking about it as a way to protect people from things that hurt them isn't even especially useful. Think of it more as a content personalisation tool - on Twitter and Tumblr, for example, you can block tags/words. It's made my experience on both immeasurably better. I can't see why a forum with this many users wouldn't offer the option, tbh.

But it is requiring an organisation like MN to put into place filtering which presumably costs money to do that for an entire website?

So the OP is suggesting that certain words be Policed that are posted by MNetters, even if just by MNHQ? Or a website developer?

Certain words would be Policed and removed no?

Maybe have a watch of this OP

I think a trigger is a thing, but the finger on it is yours

But what words would be filtered?

And how would that be judged or implemented?

I was on MN a few years ago when trypophobia was trendy online and MNetters were putting trigger warnings in their posts about it.

And spiders or clowns or balloons or vomiting. All things that a very few have genuine phobias about.

Or death, cancer, miscarriage, infertility, infidelity, bereavement, suicide, illness, bullying etc etc.

All words that conjure up negative experiences and traumas for many people.

So which words would be picked as trigger words?

How would that work?