Wednesday, September 5, 2012

My Pinterest Review

In the past, I have mentioned my absolute love for Pinterest and the joys it has brought me. I had over 5,000 pins and found the site to be a bit of an addiction. Notice my use of the tense "had" and "found". This is no longer the case and as of today (WAHOO!!!) I have completely deleted all of my pin boards and deactivated my account. Why would I do such a thing to a much beloved site?

Pinterest emailed me porn

Every week they sent out a "Weekly Inspiration" email and in that email there was a note of my most popular repinned pins, suggestions of pins from my friends' boards that Pinterest thought I would like to pin, and the "Popular Boards" of the week. Last week, when I received my email, I was mortified to find that the very first listed Popular Board was in fact a porn board and 3 pornographic photos from the board were displayed right there in my inbox! Pinterest states under "Terms and Conditions" then "Pin Etiquette" that it does not allow nudity, but porn is absolutely rampant on the site with porn boards becoming more and more 'the in thing'.

As soon as I received this nasty email from them, I sent them a a pretty wordy email back in their complaints section. This is what the email said:

"I received my Weekly Inspiration email from Pinterest today and I was horrified to find that in the email there was a "Popular Boards" section and the first board was porn! Your terms and conditions page hasn't changed and still says that nudity is not allowed but yet, you sent me porn right to my inbox! I am horrified at the fact that this is even a listed popular board and none of your team have flagged it and trashed it, plus I can't even imagine the implications of who all you may have sent this out to! I have reported hundreds of disgusting pins and boards, and I understand it's difficult to get to all the requests but it takes months for the reports to go through and in that time, tons of free, graphic porn is right there for kids to find with your easy to use search bar. Porn boards are a huge trend at the moment and I don't feel Pinterest is doing much about it or even addressing the issue with their Pinners at all. Most people never read the terms and conditions and think that their porn boards are 'art' and allowed by Pinterest. Even if you made it so that when a pin is reported, it automatically disappears from the board until it is reviewed, and then it can be restored or deleted, that might help in frustrating people from pinning more and more porn. 


I could rant and rave more but I'm sure this will just go to an automated response inbox and I may just be ranting to nothing. Please clean up your emails that you send out to your Pinners, or at least have the decency to check what's on your Popular Boards list. 

Here is the link to the board you emailed me: 
nastypinboardlinkinstertedherewhichthankgoodnesshasfinallybeenremoved"

I did get an automated response back which did just aggravate me more and here it is:


"Hi Maggie,
Currently you cannot report an entire account to us. But you can report individual pins using these instructions:
If you’re writing about another issue, please submit a new ticket under the right topic to get help as quickly as possible.
We are always working on ways to make this process better and we really appreciate your interest in making Pinterest a place anyone can enjoy!
- The Pinterest Team"

So I sent an angry response to the automated system because I was fuming!


"I'm not trying to report an entire board, I'm trying to report Pinterest itself! And on a side note, you should be able to report and entire account because there are accounts created for the sole purpose of having boards of different types of porn. Issue not resolved and your automated response was not helpful!"
They sent me another automated message but it did make me feel a tiny bit better:
"A member of our team will review your message as soon as possible. While we’re always working hard to make Pinterest better for you, we’re currently unable to respond individually to every message we receive. Rest assured we are always listening and we’re frequently resolving issues and making improvements based on what we read in emails like this one.
Thanks for using Pinterest.
-       The Pinterest Team"

Then I waited and I waited, and I waited some more. I finally sent a tweet out yesterday noting Pinterest and how long it's taken them to get back to me since they emailed me porn and lo and behold, I got a response! It's taken them a week but finally something from a real person...although his response seems a bit automated as well:
"Hi Maggie -
We regret that this board appeared in your weekly recommendations. After reviewing this issue, our team is updating the automated way in which we recommend boards to users so that this does not happen again.
We are also reviewing this user's pins against our acceptable use policy. Pinterest does not allow photos containing breasts, buttocks or genetalia.
We're very sorry for the inconvenience. Our team is working hard to prevent inappropriate content from appearing on Pinterest. Thank you for taking the time to write in!
**If this resolves your concern, please do not reply. While we love to hear "thank you", these messages create more work for us. Thanks for understanding - and happy Pinning.**
Aaron 
Pinterest - Community Specialist"

It was a response, and I saw that the board was down, but I was still unhappy with the way Pinterest is going, how their site is becoming a giant porn board with bits of sock animal instructions and kale recipes thrown in, so I sent this:

"Hi Aaron,

I'm glad you will be updating the way you send out your recommended boards but I still feel that Pinterest's lack of control over the graphic sexual content on their site, the poor process of how to report pins, and how long it takes to remove horrific content, I am deleting my Pinterest account and will be informing others of the disgusting board that Pinterest emailed me.

Maggie"


Now that I have said my bit and received some acknowledgment, I have gone ahead and deleted all of my boards and deactivated my account. Pinterest pissed me off and I'm done. Now I just want to share it with others and maybe it will force Pinterest to take note and become more active in keeping their site from becoming just another nasty porn site.

14 comments:

  1. I'm just not into Pinterest. Of course, it's blocked at work, so that probably helps avoid it.

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  2. I never knew they did that!!

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  3. wow. I guess I just don't read their emails, if they send them to me. I just want taste a vision while looking at the foods people are making

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  4. I've never been to pinterest so now I don't have to resign from it. I do not like porn. Nasty, nasty, nasty. And yes, I know Lola says some naughty things, but she never shows off her naughty bits.

    Love,
    Janie

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  5. I love automated responses. They remind me of just how little the companies I deal with on a daily basis really value my business. I especially love automated telephone answering systems that try to figure out what I'm saying. I love how once I'm so frustrated that I start cussing and yelling then and only then do they actually get me to a real human being, usually in India, who isn't much more helpful than the machine was. But as for Pinterest, I haven't really gotten into it much, despite the fact that I now know that they'll send me porn.

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  6. Should I feel left out that they never sent me any?

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  7. I hate when you get those automated replies. The Texas Office of the Attorney General does the same thing. It was so frustrating when I was trying to find a real person to help me with child support issues. I've opened my blog to my Facebook friends and family members recently so I don't like to rant about it on my blog.

    Sorry you had to go thru this. Especially since I know how much you enjoyed Pinterest.

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  8. Interesting. How do I sign-up for these p*rn emails?!

    Just kidding! :o)

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  9. At least they didn't suggest you try yoga and then kick you off themselves. That's the result I got when I wrote my letter of complaint. Sure, it wasn't worded quite as diplomatically as yours, but still!

    Good job on sticking up for what you believe is right. I've always had issues with porn. It kinda infuriates me.

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  10. Yuck. What an awkwardly grody experience.

    Signed,

    Still Not Deactivating my Account

    (aka hopelessly addicted)

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  11. Well done for blasting them Maggie. Unfortunately most organisations on the Internet now have automatic replies to handle their correspondence, which helps nobody - Dave

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  12. Yuck! That's so disappointing! I've got a board that I pin for my kids, and when they look at it, they can get onto Pinterest from there. It never occurred to me that I should be sitting with them because they might find a porn board. That stinks.

    And automated responses... just evil phone trees in email.

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  13. They deserve to get blasted.

    I don't use pinterest much... every once in awhile I get a notice, which I just delete.

    And I hate automatic responses in whatever form they take...

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Does this straitjacket make my butt look big?