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Content Warnings

Describes what the content warning feature is and how it operates.

    This page documents features and processes maintained by Mastodon. For issues related to these features and/or processes, please reach out to the Mastodon team directly on the Mastodon project’s GitHub.

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    What are content warnings?

    Content warnings are a feature that allows you to obscure your content in such a way that it is hidden by default in other users’ timelines. Instead, only the text of the content warning is displayed. To put it another way, if you were to put a content warning on one of your posts that read “descriptions of war violence” while discussing current or past wars, users would only see that description and could then choose to click through the content warning to view the content (or not).

    How to apply a content warning

    In order to apply a content warning use the “CW” in the post field:

    Screenshot of the post field with the CW circled and with an arrow pointing to it

    An example post with a content warning on the text and image looks like this:

    Screenshot of a post with content warning 'Politics (CO)' and the blurred out content labeled 'Sensitive Content'

    Threads with a content warning

    Whenever someone replies to a post with a content warning, by default their response will carry the same content warning. Here is an example:

    Screenshot of a thread with an example content warning, that reads Example Content Warning, showing that when a user replies that content warning is pre-populated

    This is the default due to the nature of the content warning: if the top-most post of a thread needs a content warning due to what’s being shown or discussed, then the rest of that thread probably needs the same content warning. This is true both for when you respond to your own posts or when other users respond to your posts.

    When you reply to a post with a content warning you can manually disable and delete the content warning, but please do so with care. When you remove the content warning from your post all replies to you will also no longer be behind a content warning by default, even if they should be.

    When are content warnings used

    Content warnings are generally used to either hide spoilers or to provide a buffer when it is psychologically safer to choose to opt in to a conversation as opposed to being opted in by default (seeing it in a timeline). For more information on the nuance for how and when to use content warnings, please take a look at our doc on how to use content warnings.