Step 1 — The content settings on X
On the web (the app hides some of these on iPhone), open Settings and privacy → Privacy and safety → Content you see:
- Turn off Display media that may contain sensitive content.
- Under Search settings, turn on Hide sensitive content and Remove blocked and muted accounts.
- Under Mute and block → Muted words, add the hashtags and terms that show up in your feed. Set them to mute from everyone, in the timeline and in notifications.
Under Content you see → Topics, remove anything adjacent. If the algorithmic "For you" feed is the problem, stay on "Following".
What the settings can't catch
- Accounts that don't flag their media. The sensitive-content setting relies on the poster (or X) marking the media. Promotional accounts for subscription sites often don't, and they work by reply and quote.
- The toggle is yours. Same screen, same account, flipped back in ten seconds.
- Logged out, and other accounts. A private window or a second account starts from scratch.
- Links out. Most explicit content on X is a doorway to a site elsewhere. The setting hides the doorway; it doesn't lock the destination.
Step 2 — Lock the destinations
A DNS category filter refuses pornography and adult domains for every app on the device. The link in the reply, the bio link, the subscription site: none of them resolve. This is the layer that catches what X's settings miss, because it doesn't care whether a post was flagged. It also doesn't filter media that X hosts itself, because DNS works on domains, not on posts. How DNS filtering works.
Step 3 — If X itself is the problem, block X
Honest option: if the feed is where relapses start, block the domain. From your SELFCNTRL account, add x.com (and twitter.com) as blocked domains, or block the whole social category. It applies to the app as well as the browser, on every locked device, immediately. Loosening waits twenty-four hours. If the problem is the hour rather than the app, a night curfew cuts the internet entirely between, say, 11pm and 7am.
Step 4 — Make it stick
On iPhone and iPad, the filter is carried by a supervised profile that can't be removed from the device and forbids adding a VPN, so neither the category block nor the domain block can be undone on impulse. How supervision works. On Mac and Windows, the filter is tied to your account with the same one-way delay: tighten now, loosen tomorrow.
Side by side
| X content settings | DNS category filter | Block x.com (locked) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hides flagged media in feed | Yes | No | X unavailable |
| Catches unflagged promo accounts | Partly (muted words) | Their links, yes | Yes |
| Blocks the sites posts link to | No | Yes | Yes |
| Survives logout / second account | No | Yes | Yes |
| Off in under a minute | Yes | Depends on the attachment | No — 24-hour delay |
Questions
How do I block 18+ content on X?
In Settings and privacy → Privacy and safety → Content you see, turn off "Display media that may contain sensitive content", and in Search settings turn on "Hide sensitive content". Use the web version if the app hides the option. Then lock the destinations with a device-level filter, because the setting is yours to flip.
Why do I still see porn on X with sensitive content off?
The setting hides media that was flagged as sensitive. Accounts that don't flag their posts, especially promotional ones, get through. Muted words help; a DNS filter blocks the sites they link to; blocking x.com removes the feed.
Can I block X only at night?
Not X alone: SELFCNTRL's curfews cut the internet entirely on a schedule, per weekday, to the minute, so a curfew from 11pm to 7am takes X with it. Blocking x.com itself is permanent until you loosen it, twenty-four hours later.
Does blocking x.com stop the X app?
Yes. The app talks to the same domains; a DNS block on x.com and twitter.com stops it loading.