What Does NSFW Mean And How To Use It.
NSFW is an acronym for Not Safe to Work. You’ve likely seen this quite often, especially as a warning in photos and audio clips. The acronym is used when content could lead to being fired from the office due to pornographic, aggressive, or otherwise inappropriate material.
Anyway, this is its original meaning. Over time, NSFW began to apply to any content that might be uncomfortable for someone. Basically, if you see it attached to something, turn the screen away and test it yourself before you share your content with anyone else.
How Sites Use the NSFW Tag
Ironically, the NSFW tag is rarely used to refer to extreme blood. Most often, the tag “unsafe for life” or NSFL is used instead. NSFW will almost always include nudity, sexually explicit material or graphic expressions.
Some sites have started giving users the ability to block content that is NSFW. In some cases, the content will be blurry and you will have to click the blurry image or video to display the content. This is perhaps best seen in the Fifty Fifty subreddit, which hosts an image that could be good or bad. The only way to find out is to click.
Be careful, most of the content on the subreddit is just disgusting, but serves as a good example of an NSFW filter. The only way to see the content of a post is by clicking the link to its Imgur page.
How to Use NSFW
Whether you are on social media or a website owner and want to warn users that some of the content might not be right for them, there are times when NSFW is suitable for use.
Before posting, ask yourself:
- Does it contain sexual content, harsh language, or otherwise inappropriate material?
- Can I if a child saw this content?
- Could this inconvenience someone?
- Will anyone lose their job if they see this at work?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, just add “NSFW†to the title. This is just a warning to the recipient. This lets them know that it might be better to wait until they are alone to view the link, or at least not click on it on a corporate or school computer.
How to Create a NSFW Filter
There are several ways to create a filter for your own website if you want to blur NSFW content. The first is an automated method using computer vision and the PixLab API. To use this method, you must implement the PixLAB API. When you call the API using the PixLab API key, the images will be automatically checked if they are NSFW or not.
The image will receive a numerical score. The closer the image is to “1â€, the larger it is NSFW. It all runs in the background, of course, but it actually takes a little time to inject code into your website and you need to know how to code using your site’s language.
You can find details on how this works on dev.to and the actual code on github.
Another option is to simply add a link to the image. This requires a lot more manual input, but instead of embedding the image in the blog post, alert the reader that this is NSFW and then provide the link. If they follow the link, make sure they have enough alerts before clicking.
The third option is to rely on automated services like imagga, Microsoft Azure Content Moderator or similar services. Many of them are paid, but if you have a website or dedicated forum and don’t have a group of moderators, such tools can help simplify day-to-day management.
There are other options available to you as well. You can link user posts to your Facebook account. For example, if they have fewer than 50 friends, limit their posting options until a person can view the images. You can also provide users with a Report button to self-report NSFW images they encounter.
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What Does NSFW Mean And How To Use It
What Does NSFW Mean And How To Use It