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.

Only the words requested by the user.
MN doesn't get to choose the words.
I could decide I don't want to see the words: chocolate Trump and discombobulate.

@SpringerIrca The individual user would decide for themselves. Your filter wouldn't stop me seeing the words, and vice versa.

Right...but that would require MN as a website to implement software that identified certain words for filtering?

You know that right?

That would require effort and money from MNHQ to redesign their website.

And as I said, how would they choose words?

There would have to be a process where MN as a site would have to choose words for filtering.

So what gets chosen?

There'd have to be a process where certain words would be identified as the trigger words?

Who gets to decide that?

As much as MN is a popular, helpful resource for women, it is just a large talk forum. How would it be decided which words would be trigger words and filtered?

Some posters here are seriously over-estimating the money and influence that MN has.

But as an ethos, for a predominantly female member forum, it is extremely important that words and terms like rape, sexual abuse, molestation and child sex abuse and sexual molestation and images of child sexual abuse are used.

Because they're accurate descriptions of actual crimes. And it is extremely important that we don't attempt to minimise or hide the crimes by attempting to change those terms or seek to hide those terms.

Because if we filter it out for a potential victim, we also filter it out for anyone who doesn't want to hear about it but should.

No @SpringerIrca you still don't get it.

The individual user, under an options in 'my settings' or whatever would list the words they don't want to see, MN would store that list and use it to filter against when displaying threads for the user.

MN as a site wouldn't choose words, each individual would.

I totally agree that the cost-benefit may not be there, but so many people replying to this thread are not getting that the whole point is so individuals can set up their own trigger words for bespoke filtering.

@SpringerIrca I'm not sure you're getting it.

On Twitter, you can choose literally any word you want to filter - it's decided by the user, not the site. Mumsnet wouldn't need to decide which words to filter, and the filter wouldn't apply to all the users - it would work for each individual user.

So I could choose to filter the word 'cheese' on my account and I personally wouldn't see any posts with that word in. But you still would, because you hadn't filtered it. This is how it works on Twitter, Tumblr etc.

So, as in your example at the end, only the people who had specifically chosen to filter posts about rape, sexual abuse etc wouldn't see them. Everyone else still would.

I think it's an excellent idea. As others have explained it's already used by other sites and forums like TikTok and Twitter and it makes them much better.

It doesn't just have to be for traumatic stuff - anything you find annoying, like the word holibobs or #blessed, you can just get rid of.

Although obviously we should try to help those who are suffering from trauma where possible. I do wonder about the people on this site sometimes.

😂

Grow up!

I think if someone is that triggered then they maybe need to stay off of forums..

No I get it. Despite you being patronising.

And what has happened on forums like TikTok and YouTube is the nonsense where 'trigger words' like death or suicide led to the nonsense terms like 'unalive' because there's no way without a lot of effort and cost for a website to filter out without filtering out all of those words.

And unalive still means dead and unalived themself still means suicide. So people adapted their terms to circumvent the rules.

So even if MN decided to veto the word rape for instance for a filter, it would be circumvented by posters who felt the word rape was offensive in some way.

And it goes on and on.

I'm a multiple rape victim. It's bullshit expecting to filter out that word from the news or social media to not upset us.

It's life. It's happening all the time. I'm not going to be so self-absorbed that I want entire communities and websites to pretend it isn't by filtering out the reality.

Anyone that thinks that should just not be seeking out news or social media interaction.

It's really really easy to not engage. I did for prolonged periods. When I chose to look, I didn't try to enforce my needs or wants on an entire community/site.

In covid, my DD dropped off a cliff from a MH point of view. I didn't get to come out of my personal lockdown for around 18 months, and I really really struggled to keep going whilst supporting her.

MN was a social lifeline for me, it helped me keep going.

But if I could have hidden 'covid' during the worst of that time, I would have.

It isn't so simple as 'just stay off forums'.

So even if MN decided to veto the word rape for instance for a filter, it would be circumvented by posters who felt the word rape was offensive in some way.

But it wouldn't be MN vetoing any word.

Don't be silly.

For a while after a miscarriage I found pregnancy announcements and any talk of babies triggering. When in the throws of OCD I found any mention of contagious illness triggering. Triggers vary that much and can be so seemingly mundane that the board wouldn't function if it were to accommodate everyone.

If you are struggling so much that words are causing you this much distress, I kindly recommend coming off the board for a while.

But the board wouldn't have to 'accommodate everyone'.
It would accommodate each individual user who set additional filters, independently, with zero, I repeat ZERO, impact on the other readers of MN.

This forum uses Cutting edge technology have you tried to use the search function? This forum is seriously lacking the technology to hide words.

@SpringerIrca

People don't use terms like unalive to get around individual users' filter words. They are trying not to get kicked out by automatic algorithms that detect certain blacklisted topics.

I agree.

But then you'd go into a thread thinking you're safe, only to be confronted by Brie, Camembert, Yarg and Dairylea, somebody alluding to the usage of rennet and a vast number of people using a euphemism or spelling change (as per the unaliving of Jweish people by the Naz1$ on TikTok) to ensure that dicussions regarding chiz on toast go on regardless of individual sensitivities.

If you can't cope with seeing a word then I respectfully suggest the internet is not for you

Knock. Knock.

Can I talk to you about cheeses?

Personally I think that if there were individual filters, and someone purposely misspelled words in order to upset/antagonise posters who had filtered, then that someone should be banned.

This is not at all the same as MN having banned words.

Maybe the internet isn't for you OP.

I am not in favour of sanitising forums based on an individual's 'triggers'. Triggers can be absolutely anything - which words would be ok? Who determines this? No.

The level of misunderstanding and hostility towards filter words on this thread 😂

Remember: if you'd like to tailor your mumsnet content in any way then you are a deranged autocrat who should simply avoid the whole internet.