Profanity filters help improve the internet by eliminating or replacing offensive words. They’re used with great success in gaming, streaming, social networks, and even online dating. Some of the best tools for profanity filtering include: However, profanity filters have several limitations. Read our full article below to know about them and how to use them on your devices, social media, and streaming sites. In the following article, we are going to talk about what profanity filters are, how to activate them on popular social media networks, and talk about some of the best profanity filters available, including their key benefits and limitations.
What is a Profanity Filter?
Profanity filters are essentially filters that utilize algorithms to censor offensive words, swear or cuss words, or other forms of bad language. They usually have a long list of profane words. Whenever these words are used by members of a community or displayed in a motion picture, the algorithm automatically substitutes them with synonyms, replaces them with symbols, or mutes that section of the audio. Some platforms filter profanity by default. An example of this is multiplayer games. Chatting in-game, or in the lobby before a game, is an integral part of the multiplayer experience. But when you gather hundreds of thousands of people in the same place, you can expect a few people to use unpleasant words or harass other players. That’s why profanity filtering is automatically activated for game chats. Because such games cater to a larger age demographic, profanity needs to be filtered actively. In other cases, you can enable profanity filtering yourself. For example, Facebook and Instagram both have profanity filters you can turn on if you want to protect your page from offensive comments.
How to Activate a Profanity Filter on Facebook or Instagram
A lot of the platforms we use on a daily basis have built-in swear filters. Facebook and Instagram are good examples. Not to mention, some even grant you a degree of customizability. People can add their own words to the deny list of the filter. And for the platforms that don’t have their own profanity filter, applications like ClearPlay or VidAngel (more on these below) can provide the censorship families need in order to enjoy online content or social networks.
Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t have a profanity filter that parents can unlock to protect their children online from all profane content site-wide. However, Facebook has a profanity filter for pages. So if you are running a page on Facebook, you can censor the language your followers can use. Here’s how you can activate the Facebook profanity filter: Make sure you’re interacting on Facebook as your page. You can usually do this by simply opening the page. This will enable a profanity filter based on the words most often reported by the Facebook community. Unfortunately, it doesn’t let users customize the list of censored words. And as mentioned, it only works for pages, not personal accounts.
Instagram’s profanity filter is more advanced. You can turn it for business, or personal accounts, and you can customize the words you want it to censor. This is a wonderful tool for Instagram users, especially since the platform is more focused. To turn on Instagram’s profanity filter, here’s what you’ll have to do: Instagram’s default deny list is also based on community feedback. But users can always add their own words to this list and have that hidden from them and their followers. Instagram turns on the basic profanity filter by default. However, users can enable a more rigorous version of it, or add custom words if they so choose. But there are a lot of providers that don’t feature a built-in content moderation tool, especially streaming platforms. In that case, third-party apps can ensure a family-friendly user experience.
The Five Best Profanity Filters
When it comes to general browsing or streaming, there are several third-party profanity filters that you can use to filter out unwanted language on the web. Here are the 5 best options you can choose from.
1. Enjoy Movies Your Way
This app lets you set up one or more profiles where you can control the profanity filters for any movie or tv show you want to watch. Moreover, it includes lots of other helpful features such as automatic picture quality enhancement, translation of subtitles into over 100 languages, customizable font, size and color of subtitles, and more. The best part is that the basic version is absolutely free though it includes periodic intermissions when you’re watching. The full version too is quite affordable at just $6.00 per month. On the whole, it’s a great tool to have if you enjoy streaming content on multiple devices and would like to filter out profanity.
2. VidAngel
VidAngel is another great profanity filter that works on various devices, such as an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Android, Android TV, Chromecast, and Fire TV. Unfortunately, it no longer supports Roku. VidAngel can filter entire categories such as media that includes sex, violence, or adult language. Or, you can target sub-categories, like graphic violence. It also lets you filter specific elements, such as specific words or certain scenes. Unfortunately, it’s not a free service and costs $9.99 each month. However, its capabilities make it worth the money if you consume media on compatible devices. While it works on a wide range of devices, there’s no general app for smart TVs such as Samsung or LG.
3. ClearPlay
ClearPlay is an advanced profanity filter, built primarily for streaming. Its creators partnered with streaming platforms like Netflix or Disney+ to create a more robust and comprehensive filtering system. However, ClearPlay isn’t free. It offers a free trial, and after that, it costs $7.99/month. The distinction is that they provide manual censorship for each individual show or movie. Before streaming something, ClearPlay users can choose what they want to filter from that specific movie too. However, they don’t censor the entire library, since each video is manually censored. You can check the supported movies and shows on ClearPlay’s website. This is ideal for family users. For instance, dedicated filters are available for popular titles like Hamilton or Mulan on Disney+.
4. Advanced Profanity Filter
Advanced Profanity Filter is a browser extension that works with Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. It has an outdated interface but is completely free to use and quite reliable. It censors any form of online communication, whether that’s text on Twitter, or audio while streaming. Here are some of its features:
You can select the filter method: censorship, substitution, or removal. You can see a summary of the filtering process. You can add words or phrases to the filter.
However, Advanced Profanity Filter has some limitations while streaming: it does not index individual media productions but analyzes the subtitles of each show or movie you watch. So if any profane word comes up in the subtitle, it will be censored. But if the audio doesn’t match the subtitles well, this plugin won’t be able to mute the content at the right time.
5. Stream Clean
It analyzes closed captions to filter adult language and other user-defined words in video content. The minimalist interface makes it super easy to set up and use, which makes it great for almost any user. Stream Clean is free to use, and while it might skip some words now and then, it’s still pretty reliable. More importantly, the developer behind the extension is very responsive to feedback.
How to Add Profanity Filters to Your Smart TV
As mentioned above, there are two profanity filters apps which work on Android/Google Smart TVs:
Enjoy Movies Your Way VidAngel
However, these do not work on generic smart TVs that don’t have access to the Google Play Store. As an alternative, you can try the options below for adding profanity filters to your TV:
The Benefits of Profanity Filters
Profanity filters help create a more respectful, family-friendly, and inclusive internet experience. They’re not foolproof protection against discrimination and offensive content. But they’re an integral part of content moderation.
Muting swear words
Streaming is one area where filtering profanity can enable a family-friendly experience. Third-party software can mute audio whenever swear words come up, grey out subtitles, and even skip entire sections that are not safe for children.
Removing profanity from multiplayer games
Multiplayer video games also benefit a lot from profanity filters. Gaming and toxicity have a very complicated relationship, which especially comes to light in multiplayer interactions. Profanity filters don’t solve the problem entirely, but they help remove some of the negativity. If you want to know more about protecting your children while they’re gaming, read our articles on Roblox and Minecraft.
Filtering profanity on social media
Social platforms aren’t free of toxicity either. Quite the opposite. Cyberbullying is a worrying problem in the 21st century, and a lot of it is taking place on social media. Profanity filters can help mitigate some of the negative impacts of cyberbullying and create safer spaces.
Filtering hate-filled comments
Dating sites also use profanity filters. They are extremely important to protect disadvantaged minorities, like members of the LGBTQ+ community. Again, profanity filters aren’t the end-all-be-all solution many make them out to be. But they’re a reliable way to cut down on profane content, allowing people to enjoy the internet. And they complement other content moderation tools really well.
The Limitations of Profanity Filtering
Profanity filters have a lot of benefits, but they also have a few limitations. Here are a few.
Not always reliable in online communities
People can circumvent filters in online communities. They usually do this by using the synonyms of swear words or alternate spelling. Online users can still offend their peers with subtle statements that ignore any deny list of words. So while offensive language is limited, a simple profanity filter is never the only content moderation tool that you should use.
Not very effective against online harassment
A profanity filter doesn’t stop online harassment. Rather, it acts as a barrier between the most blatant forms of abuse and their victims. More advanced filters that use AI to analyze user interactions will provide a better user experience in the future. But right now, they’re not readily available. Companies still need to rely on traditional content moderation tools. If you need features other than profanity filtering, you may need to get a parental control app. These robust solutions include features like website blocking, social media monitoring, location tracking, and more.
Parental Control Options: Do They Help?
Most modern devices include parental control options such as Apple’s Screen Time. Additionally, you can use third-party parental control apps such as Kaspersky Safe Kids to prevent children from accessing inappropriate content. At the same time, major streaming services include their own parental controls that can limit the content accessible by younger viewers. While all these controls are effective to an extent, they do not provide a complete solution because they simply block off all inappropriate content. For parents who want to give their children access to more content, but limit the graphic or vulgar parts of it, external profanity filters like the ones discussed in this article can be quite handy. Further, there are several other ways to keep children safe online. If you want to find out more about this, check out our Kids Online section.
