How to hide NSFW videos and pics appearing in Twitter’s hidden replies

Twitter is plagued by a moderating problem, which makes any interaction on its platform risky. NBC News reported that videos showing violence towards animals are now common in replies to popular tweets. Searching “cat” in the search bar, for instance, can auto-complete as “cat in a blender.” These videos also autoplay for users who have not disabled that feature in their settings.

Twitter has been struggling with moderation problems for a long time, which escalated with Elon Musk’s purchase of the platform and the subsequent mass layoffs. Users in 2022 took advantage of Twitter Blue’s ability to buy a verified tickmark to impersonate brands and celebrities. Twitter Blue changed a lot after the initial surge, but impersonation still remains an issue. Twitter is also becoming more and more popular for its use of hate speech. These videos are especially common in the ‘hidden replies’ section, which is designed to make low quality or harassing comments less visible.

While Twitter appears to have turned off autocomplete suggestions in the site’s search bar, these videos can still appear in replies — especially if the user has purchased Twitter blue, which boosts their replies to the top of the chain. To stop video previews from appearing, go to the Settings and Privacy section and choose Accessibility, Languages and Display.

First, check the ‘Motion’ menu and ensure that Autoplay is set to Never. The Media Previews can be found in the Display Menu. After the option is toggled on, all media previews will be displayed as text links instead of thumbnails.

Some user made accounts, like “HIDDEN REPLIES CHECKER!!!” will manually check hidden replies upon request, sharing the contents of these posts with descriptions like “Zootopia Rule 34” or “its a man blowing his head off with a shotgun.”

As Twitter’s problems continue to mount, it’s not clear whether this disturbing trend will be addressed by the platform. Twitter is also a place where you can find other forms of NSFW or disturbing images, such as depictions of children’s deaths.