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.