Pinterest

Pinterest, an image sharing and social media platform, allows users to discover new ideas or projects and share their own content with other users. As of 2019, the platform has more than 200 billion “pins” and more than 320 million monthly active users.¹ Given Pinterest’s role in allowing users to share and discover new ideas across a wide variety of topics, it could play an important role in elections and other forms of civic engagement. The company recently joined a cohort of other major tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and Twitter, and government agencies to discuss ongoing trends in deceptive online behavior and ways to combat misinformation.² In order to help avoid issues with voter misinformation and disinformation on its platform, Pinterest has banned all political advertising.³ The platform’s ad policy does not allow advertising for:

• The election or defeat of political candidates running for public office, including fundraising for political candidates or parties
• Political parties or action committees
• Political issues with the intent to influence an election
• Legislation, including referendums or ballot initiatives
• Merchandise related to political candidates, parties, or elections

However, similar to other platforms that have banned political advertising, like Amazon, it is unclear how Pinterest enforces these policies on political ads. The platform does not provide details around the advertising approval process and whether potential ads are reviewed and approved by human-led teams or whether the platform utilizes algorithms.

Along with banning political advertising, Pinterest’s general Community Guidelines state that the platform is not a place for “misinformation, disinformation, mal-information or the individuals or groups spreading or creating it.”⁴ The platform states that it removes any content it deems to fall into these categories. Under its misinformation section, Pinterest explicitly prohibits “false or misleading content that impedes an election’s integrity or an individual's or group's civic participation, including registering to vote.”⁵ Users can report content they believe violates Pinterest’s policies, and the platform states that it uses these reports to learn and improve its standards. The platform ensures that content meets its Community Guidelines through automated processes and human review,⁶ but it does not clarify if the company plans to use its standard review process for this or if it will take additional steps to combat voter misinformation.⁷ Given that there is little transparency around these review processes, going forward Pinterest should clarify what type of automated processes it has in place, how its tools are trained, updated, and used, and how effective they are. Further, in a January 2020 blog post Pinterest stated “we’ll take down content that misleads people about where, when or how to vote.” The company also shared that for accounts that have been suspended due to a single or repeat violation, the account owner will receive a suspension notice when they try to log in to Pinterest. There is a form on the platform’s website that allows users to appeal their suspension, but the guidelines do not provide a timeline for how long the review process can be.⁸ A timely and robust appeals process is a vital method of remedy and redress for users. Going forward, the company should ensure users have access to such a process and provide clarity around the timeline for these processes.

While Pinterest has taken some steps to combat misinformation and disinformation, it should be more transparent on how they are actively combating voting and election misinformation. For example, the platform should share what steps it is taking to detect and remove voting-related ads or voting-related misinformation on users’ Pinterest accounts. For other areas of misinformation, such as anti-vaccination content, Pinterest has been more vocal about its efforts, which include conducting internal content moderation sweeps and utilizing automated tools to block URLS that frequently share anti-vaccination content.⁹ Pinterest should confirm if they utilize similar steps for voting and election-related misinformation.

Currently, Pinterest’s annual transparency report only includes information on U.S. law enforcement requests for user information, such as the number of subpoenas or court orders the platform receives. The company currently does not provide data on its own content moderation efforts for ads or user-generated content. This lack of transparency makes it difficult to gauge the scope of misinformation on the platform and what potential impacts it may have on voter suppression. In order to increase visibility and accountability, Pinterest should expand its transparency reporting practices to include comprehensive content policy enforcement data. The report should include data related to the enforcement of misinformation and voter suppression-related policies and related appeals.