Twitter Allows Users Access To Content Alert Feature, Flag Sensitive Posts

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Twitter has finally allowed all users to access the content alert feature. The feature, which was tested late last year, lets users blur photos and videos.

However, the warning only applies to individual photos for pornographic, violent and sensitive content, rather than adding an overarching warning to all multimedia tweets.

The feature is now available on Twitter's Android and iOS apps as well as its web client. Users can place a content alert on the upload by adding a photo or video, tapping to edit it, then pressing the flag icon, which will bring up the options listed above.

The option to add one-time sensitive content warnings to photos and videos you Tweet is now available for everyone across Android, iOS, and web.To add a content warning, tap the flag icon when editing the photo/video after you've attached it to your Tweets.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) February 25, 2022

In addition, users can also mark multiple alerts for individual sections of media, and add alerts to one image or video in a tweet but not to another. Although in the latter case, Twitter seems to be placing one caveat on both.

As with the previous system, users could click Show to view media, and they could not place a warning in the text of the tweet.

So far, the warning doesn't appear in tweets or embedded apps like TweetDeck. And sadly there is no category for tweets that most people want to avoid, movie spoilers for example

As the category suggests, content alerts are framed as a way to keep people from engaging with potentially distracting or uncomfortable viewing material.

If a user fails to flag content while uploading sensitive material, Twitter will rely on user reports to decide whether the user uploaded content should have a warning or not.

This content warning feature has actually been owned by Instagram since 2017, the application blurs photos and videos that contain sensitive content. If someone reports a post and Instagram's moderation team agrees it's sensitive, then the image will appear blurry and with a warning above it reads, "This photo contains sensitive content that some people may find offensive or disturbing."

Users who want to see the upload have to tap the button. However, adding an upload blur won't change anything, Instagram will still allow that content in the app.