How to stop seeing NSFW content on X, Instagram, Reddit and TikTok

Every social network has its own sensitive content filter. Here is where to turn each one on and, more importantly, what it doesn’t cover.

Updated October 21, 2026

Social networks mix everything together, and blocking them outright is rarely an option. Luckily, each one has a setting to hide sensitive content. The catch is that they all depend on the same thing: someone having labelled that post as sensitive. Below is where each setting lives and what it lets through.

App menus change often. If a step doesn’t match what you see, search the app’s settings for “sensitive content”.

X (Twitter)

1. Open Settings and privacy, then Privacy and safety.
2. Under Content you see, untick Display media that may contain sensitive content.
3. In Search settings, turn on Hide sensitive content. It is a separate setting: without it, sensitive posts still show up in searches.
4. Optional: under Muted words, add words or hashtags you don’t want in your timeline.

What gets through: anything the poster didn’t label as sensitive and X didn’t detect. Muted words don’t apply to every search either.

Instagram

1. Go to your profile, open the menu and tap Settings.
2. Find Suggested content or Content preferences, then Sensitive content.
3. Pick the most restrictive option (Less). Under-18 accounts have it set by default.

What gets through: the setting only affects what Instagram recommends to you (Explore, Reels, search and suggestions). Posts from accounts you follow show up as usual.

Reddit

1. Open Settings from your avatar.
2. In the feed preferences, turn off Show mature (18+) content.
3. If you’d rather keep seeing it but covered, leave that option on and turn on Blur mature (18+) images and media.

What gets through: it only hides or blurs posts marked NSFW. On the iPhone app, the setting is sometimes changed from the Reddit website instead.

TikTok

1. Go to your profile, open the menu and tap Settings and privacy.
2. Open Content preferences, then Restricted Mode.
3. Turn it on and create a passcode. You’ll need it to turn the mode off.

What gets through: Restricted Mode limits content that may not be suitable for all audiences, but it doesn’t catch everything: suggestive content that stays within the rules still appears.

Summary: what each setting covers

For what slips through: covering it on desktop

All of these filters look at a label, not at the image. If you want things covered even when nobody has flagged them, you need something that looks at each photo. On desktop, an extension such as Serenfix analyses the images on any site inside your own browser and covers only the areas you choose: chest, genitals, underwear and so on. It works the same on all four networks, with nothing to set up in each one.

Photos are censored for free. Videos on TikTok, X, Instagram or YouTube, and GIFs, need Premium. For the full setup, see our guide on how to blur NSFW images in Chrome.