Google wants to make the Internet safe: filters for NSFW images

February 8th, 2023 at 12:15 p.m. by Andreas Link – Google wants to make the Internet safe and introduce blur filters for image searches. Offensive and explicit content should then be blurred by default and can be released in the simple version with a click.

Google wants to make the Internet safer, especially for children and young people. Therefore, the Safe Search should be expanded and in future also filter images that may be offensive. Explicit image material should then be provided with a blur filter – if you use Reddit, you should be more familiar with it as an NSFW filter. The feature is scheduled to launch “in the coming months.” While the creator of Reddit decides whether the filter is applied or not, Google uses AI to decide fully automatically whether content may be offensive.

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As you can already guess, the focus is on image search results that have pornographic or violent content and are potentially unsuitable for children, but which adults do not always want to see in the result lists either. In the default setting, the image can then be identified with one click. For children, it is recommended that parents configure Safe Search. However, permanent settings require an account – this is more realistic on mobile devices than on desktop systems.

Google already knows filters for registered users whose age is calculated as under 18 years of age. Then the text results in the search are also filtered in such a way that you do not come across any clearly explicit content. The blur filter for images, however, could find some friends, because sometimes even harmless search queries are peppered with images that are better seen at work only pixelated.

What: Google