Content warning: Before reading this section, we’d like to make it clear that the following content will contain potential sensitive or triggering material for the purposes of education. The content will explicitly state to not use these terms, but to that end, must show which terms to avoid.
If terms or themes are triggering for you related to race, gender, disability, or family status, please reach out to Ruta to make additional accommodations.
A content warning, sometimes called a trigger warning, is a brief disclaimer shown before content that gives readers an idea of what they are about to read, specifically to avoid triggering past trauma.
These warnings sometimes are prefaced with “content warning:…”, “trigger warning:…”, or just the abbreviations, “tw:…”, or “cw:…”.
Most of what we write about at Surfshark will not require a content warning, but anything related to abuse, violence, sexism, racism, general discrimination, antisemitism, gendered language, family situations or mental health are common topics that can require a content warning. Be aware of this, but you most likely won’t be intentionally writing about these topics on a regular basis.
For a more in-depth study of content and trigger warnings, read this resource by the University of Michigan
The concept of anti-racist language comes from the recent pushback against phrases and terms with historically racist roots.
Using terms where “dark” or “black” means something negative. These reinforce research findings that suggest people have a tendency to perceive someone with darker skin as more likely to commit an immoral act.