Threads users will soon have more control over what shows up (or doesn’t) in their feeds. According to a Threads post from Instagram head Adam Mosseri, an update to the platform’s Hidden Words feature will allow users to customize which content is filtered out separate from their preferences on Instagram.
Hidden Words itself isn’t new: Threads users can already mute words, phrases, and emojis from their feeds and automatically filter out comments containing offensive language. However, this was a global setting that applied to both Threads and Instagram, so you weren’t able to have separate lists of content to hide or customize those filters on Threads.
Threads is also testing a “mark spoiler” content label to hide spoilers in posts—unless a user taps to reveal the text or image—as well as DMs. It also isn’t the only platform to increase user control over what content they see: TikTok recently expanded its settings that allow users to better personalize their For You feeds, including AI-powered keyword filtering.
How to customize Hidden Words on Threads
To edit Hidden Words, open the Threads app, tap your profile icon in the bottom navigation bar, then open the Settings menu from the top-right corner. Go to Content preferences > Hidden Words. You can toggle Hide common offensive words in replies off or on, which will move replies to a hidden section under your posts (anyone can still tap to show them).
Under that, you can tap + New filter to hide posts with certain words, phrases, or emojis from your feed as well as replies containing filtered content. Threads has new options to customize filters, such as hiding posts shared by anyone or only profiles you don’t follow as well a 30-day “snooze” for filtered content you don’t want to permanently hide. Related words can be batched under a single custom filter (spider and spiders, for example).
Note that the new feature may not be available on your device just yet, so keep an eye out for app updates.
