Pinterest has issued an apology following a significant incident of “over-enforcement” that led to the wrongful deactivation of numerous accounts. The platform has faced peculiar moderation challenges lately, prompting frustrated users to report that their accounts were suspended unexpectedly and without explanation. In response to multiple appeals, Pinterest cited vague violations of community guidelines.
Initially, the company addressed concerns regarding the bans by stating that they would “continuously monitor content for violations of our Community Guidelines, and accounts with problematic content may face deactivation.” This statement did little to quell user anger, as many were demanding clearer explanations regarding the alleged guideline violations, and expressed frustration over the slow processing of appeals for reinstatement of wrongly banned accounts.
On Wednesday, Pinterest released an updated statement addressing this issue, linked to a previous support post from July of last year. “We recently enforced our content policies; however, an internal error resulted in excessive action, leading to some accounts being wrongly deactivated,” Pinterest explained in a statement attached to the earlier post. “We sincerely apologize for the frustration this has caused. We’ve reinstated many affected accounts and are making improvements to enhance our response to mistakes in the future.”
However, Pinterest has not clarified the specifics of the “internal error,” its cause, or whether it has been fixed. Some users have reported that Pinterest was also removing pins for seemingly arbitrary reasons, such as flagging images of ordinary objects for “adult content,” fueling speculation that an inadequately implemented AI moderation system may be to blame for these incorrect actions. Nevertheless, Pinterest has informed TechCrunch that AI moderation was not the cause of the issue.
Reports from the Pinterest subreddit indicate that users who were wrongly suspended in the last few weeks are beginning to regain access to their accounts. However, due to the clumsy handling of this situation by the company, many disgruntled users are hesitant to forgive the platform quickly.
