How to Block Porn and NSFW Content on Reddit
Reddit and NSFW Content
If you’ve been a Redditor for a few days, you’ve undoubtedly been tainted by some of the more… adult content found on Reddit.
What’s worse is that a lot of porn stuff on Reddit is just re-purposed commercial stuff, made to look homemade in order to appeal to the Reddit’s target demographic – digital natives looking unique, personal experiences.
This leads to a vicious cycle where a person’s porn habit gets entangled with his reading habit, making for a more distracting browsing experience.
How to Block NSFW materials on Reddit
There are two ways to block adult content on Reddit, and it’s sad to say that both ways are not as bulletproof as you think they are.
The first way is with using Reddit’s new interface.
To block NSFW content, do the following steps:
- Login to your Reddit account
- Go to your settings page (found in “User settings” in your account dropdown) or by visiting https://www.reddit.com/settings/feed directly
- In “User settings,” go to “Feed Settings” and disable the “Adult content” toggle:
Switching adult content off will also switch the “safe browsing mode” toggle off as it’s no longer needed. The safe browsing mode is there only to blur adult images, but disabling adult content disables all the subreddits with adult content from being browsable or searchable.
How to Block with the Old Interface
Many veteran Redditors enjoy the old UI more than the new one.
That’s understandable, as the old UI packs more options in less space, and that’s true for the adult content features as well!
While you can enable/disable the adult mode on the old UI, you can also fine-tune your settings if you wish to leave the adult mode on. No idea why you would do that, but the option is there for those that need it.
To block via the old UI:
- Login to your Reddit account
- Go to https://old.reddit.com/prefs (don’t worry this won’t switch your account to the old UI)
- You can either disable the “I am over eighteen years old” toggle so that all adult content gets blocked:
- Or you can leave the “I am over eighteen years old” switch enabled and disable NSFW content with this toggle:
Both options will lead to different results, with the first one (disabling the 18+ switch) blocking more stuff than the latter.
If you’re looking for a porn-free Reddit experience, the first option should be better, while the other option is more suited for someone who likes the occasional surprise and lure of adventure.
What About NSFW Subreddits
If you’re wondering whether these options will also block NSFW subreddits or just search and feed results, the answer is that yes, disabling adult content is a site-wide switch. The option is going to block access to all adult content found on Reddit, including topics, comments, subreddits and search results.
This is what you’ll receive when trying to browse 18+ content:
How to Block on the Reddit App
In order to block with the Reddit iOS and/or Android app, you are going to have to login into a Reddit account in the mobile app.
You’ll need a Reddit account, as otherwise it’s not possible to sync up the settings you’ve set on the desktop version of Reddit.
After you’ve logged in a Reddit account that has the NSFW mode disabled, you should find no more adult images and gifs appearing in the Reddit app.
Do note that the NSFW mode has to be switched on a laptop/desktop before using the mobile app.
The mobile app itself has no option to disable this setting. Here is a screenshot from the Reddit iOS settings panel:
The NSFW or “I am 18+” switch is nowhere to be found.
On the plus side, there is a “clear local history” option which should work nicely if you want to delete all previous visits to the adult subreddits.
What About Enabling NSFW Mode?
To enable NSFW mode, you just have to follow the advice from the beginning of this article, and instead of disabling the “adult mode”, you would enable it on the new interface.
For the old interface, you would have to enable the “I am over 18 years old” toggle and make sure all other NSFW options are disabled.
What’s more worrying is that Reddit has made it very easy to enable NSFW mode by just browsing to an adult-themed subreddit. If you find yourself thinking about browsing a porn subreddit, all you have to do is confirm that you are eligible age-wise, click confirm and all the settings you’ve previously set will come undone.
Reddit should probably make this option more difficult to enable, as there are probably thousands of users per month that suffer a porn relapse due to this.