$re = '/(screen_name:\s+\S)(\S*)(\S)/';
$str = 'February 3, 2018 screen_name: FR33Q location: Europe verified: false lang: en';
$subst = "\1****\3";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php