Mass Account Deletion, Pinterest Admits 'Internal Error'

JAKARTA – Pinterest has issued a further statement regarding the many accounts that were recently disabled. In the statement, Pinterest admitted that there was an internal error.

The company apologized for the error they made because quite a few users were affected. As an effort to resolve the issue, Pinterest has restored accounts that were previously suspended without any clarity.

"We apologize for the frustration this has caused. We have reactivated many of the affected accounts and made improvements to respond more quickly if errors occur in the future," Pinterest said via X, quoted on Friday, May 16.

The visual idea search platform also explained the cause of the many suspended accounts. Although it is not clear what kind of error Pinterest made, the company admitted that it was too enthusiastic.

They tried to 'make Pinterest the safest and most positive place on the internet', but their efforts were actually too excessive. It seems that this was influenced by setting content safety standards that were too high.

"We recently took action on violations of our content policies, but an internal error led to excessive enforcement and some accounts were mistakenly disabled," the company explained.

Although a follow-up statement has been shared, Pinterest did not reveal how many accounts they suspended or disabled accidentally. It was also not explained how many accounts had been successfully recovered.

However, the problems faced by users were not limited to that. Pinterest also removed its users' pins for violating Community Guidelines. In fact, there was no problem with the photos uploaded by its users.

Pinterest, inadvertently, marked the account category inaccurately. Even images of objects were considered 'adult content' so Pinterest removed them.

Many suspect that this problem was influenced by the inadequate Artificial Intelligence (AI) moderation system. However, Pinterest confirmed to TechCrunch that AI moderation was not responsible for the error.