Discord Sensitive Content Filters

kynthia
  • Updated

At Discord, we're committed to helping create a positive experience for everyone in our community. Our sensitive content filters are one way we work to support our users as they connect and hang out together online.

What this article covers:

Types of Filters

We currently offer image-based media filters to help reduce exposure to certain categories of potentially sensitive content:

  • Mature Sexual Media Filter: Helps detect image-based media that may contain sexually explicit or suggestive material involving adults
  • Graphic Media Filter: Helps detect image-based media that may contain violent or potentially disturbing visual material
These filters currently can detect sensitive content in image-based media.They do not detect sensitive content in videos. No automated system is perfect, and some content that you consider sexually explicit or graphic in nature may not be caught by the filters. 

You can report image-based media that you think should have been blocked by selecting “Report Message”. This will help us improve our filters over time. You can learn more about reporting abusive content here.

Your default content filter settings and ability to change your settings may depend on your region.

How Teens Experience Filters

For teen users, image-based media filters are automatically enabled to help create a tailored Discord experience. These filters work to detect image-based media that may fall into two categories:

  • Mature Sexual Media Filter: Detects image-based media that may contain sexually explicit or suggestive material involving adults
  • Graphic Media Filter: Detects image-based media that may contain violent or potentially disturbing visual content

The filters currently process image-based media posted on Discord and blur or block content when sensitive material is detected. When these filters are set to blur, they apply to all historic and new media.

Discord will block image-based media that may be sensitive in DMs from non-friends and blur that content in direct messages (DMs) from friends, group direct messages (GDMs), and servers for teens. The blur helps prevent teens from seeing potentially inappropriate image-based media. 

  • In some countries, users can press on the eye icon to unblur the media. Users can always re-blur the unblurred media again if desired by pressing on the eye icon again. 

Example of a blurred image

  • For multiple images sent in one message, the blurring or blocking will only be applied to the specific images that are detected by the filters.

Example of only one image being blurred

Teens can press on Why we hide some media below the blurred content. Selecting this will show more detail about our content filters and the types of media we detect.


Why we hide some media additional info

  • If teens press on Learn More they will be brought to this article for details on our sensitive content filters.
  • In some countries, users can press on Let us know if the media we blurred should not be considered as sensitive. Pressing this will forward that media to our team in order to help us improve our sensitive image-based media detection.  

Another way users can let us know if a media is not sensitive is to right-click or long press the media and find the option to Mark as Not Sensitive. By selecting this, users will see the media again with the ability to confirm Mark as not sensitive. This will also forward the media to Discord to help improve our sensitive media detection. 

In Content & Social settings, teens can change their preferences for how to handle sensitive media. There are options to either blur or block content for DMs from friends and DMs from others.

  • For DMs from friends: The default selection will be set to blur potentially sensitive image-based media for teens. This selection creates the blurred media experience shown above. If the block selection is made, this media will be blocked at upload and not shown at all.
  • For DMs from non-friends: The default selection will be set to block sensitive image-based media for teens. This means the media will be blocked at upload and not shown at all.
For teens, image-based media that may be sensitive will be blurred in servers. Server owners may also choose to turn on server-specific safety settings that can block sensitive image-based media from being shared.

Sensitive-content filters setting

How Adults Experience Filters

For adults, you have full control over your sensitive content filter preferences. You can choose to show, blur, or block potentially sensitive image-based media across both filter categories:

  • Mature Sexual Media Filter: Detects image-based media that may contain sexually explicit or suggestive material involving adults
  • Graphic Media Filter: Detects image-based media that may contain violent or potentially disturbing visual content

Adults can customize their sensitive content filters by changing their preferences in Content & Social settings. There are options to either show, blur, or block image based-media detected by the filters, and each filter (Mature Sexual Media and Graphic Media) has separate controls:

  • Direct messages from friends
  • Direct messages from others
  • Messages in server channels

Default settings for Adults:

  • DMs from friends: Show sensitive image-based media
  • DMs from non-friends: Block sensitive image-based media
  • Server channels: Show sensitive image-based media
In servers, you can only choose to "show" or "blur" image-based media detected by the filters. Blocking is controlled by each server's individual safety settings.

If "Blur" is selected, image-based media detected by the filters where you are chatting will not be shown to you unless you choose to unblur it. 

Adults can press on the eye icon to unblur the image-based media, or press the eye icon one more time to hide the media behind a blur again.


Blur example

For multiple images sent in one message, the blurring will only be applied to the specific images that are detected across either filter category.

Example of some images being blurred

Why We Hide Some Media?

All users with a filter enabled can press on Why we hide some media below the media. Pressing this will show more detail about our filters and the types of media they might detect.

Adults will have the option to go to Settings to see their sensitive media preferences. Users can press on Let us know if the media we blurred should not be considered sensitive. Pressing this will forward that media to our team to help us improve our content detection across both filter categories.

Why we hide some media additional info

What If Media is Incorrectly Flagged?

Another way to let us know if the media was incorrectly flagged is to right-click or long press the media and find the option to Mark as Not Sensitive. By selecting this, adults will see the media again with the ability to confirm "Mark as not sensitive."

Mark as not sensitive message

Once these filter preferences are changed to show or blur all historic and new media will follow your selected settings. If you change the setting to block, it will only impact image-based media detected by the filters going forward.

Future Updates

Discord plans to continue improving our Sensitive Media filters to better detect sensitive content and provide users with more control over their Discord experience. We are also exploring additional filter categories and detection methods to help create a more comfortable environment for all users.

Check our Safety News Hub for the latest information about updates to our safety features and content filters.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the difference between “blur”, “block”, and “show” when it comes to sensitive media?
A: There are a few important differences between these options, namely:

  • Block: This option prevents potentially sensitive content from appearing in your Discord experience.
  • Blur: This option conceals content behind a cover that adult users and teen users in some countries can press to reveal when they choose to view it.
  • Show: This option displays potentially sensitive content. 

Q: Can teens turn off the filters completely?
A: No, teens cannot disable the filters entirely. However, teens do have control over whether sensitive content is blurred or blocked in their direct messages.

Q: What's the difference between the Mature Sexual Media and Graphic Media filters?
A: The Adult Sexual Media filter detects content that may contain sexually explicit or suggestive material involving adults.

The Graphic Media filter detects content that may contain violent or potentially disturbing visual content. 

Both filters work together to help reduce exposure to potentially distressing image-based media.

Q: How does Discord detect sensitive media?
A: When these filters are enabled, messages containing image-based media are processed by our automated systems to identify content that may fall under either filter category. While our technology continues to improve, no automated system is perfect, which is why we provide ways for users to report incorrect detections.

Q: Does Discord review all the content detected by the filters?
A: No. These filters have been developed to help improve the user experience on Discord by limiting exposure to image-based media that users may find sensitive or inappropriate. 

Users can always report content detected by the filters to Discord for review if you believe the content violates Discord's Community Guidelines.

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