At Pinterest, our mission is to bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love, and it’s our guiding light in drafting and enforcing our policies. 

On this page, you can read about how we put our policies into practice, including any restrictions that we may apply to your content or your use of Pinterest. We also publish regular transparency reports that provide more detail about moderation trends and practices.

Not everything on the internet is inspiring, so we have Community Guidelines to outline what we do and don’t allow on Pinterest. The following explains how we enforce those guidelines.

When we become aware of a violation of our Community Guidelines, we’ll take action: 

We determine whether content should be removed or limited in distribution based on how much risk of harm it poses, particularly the severity of its impact and the vulnerability of its target. Depending on the context, we may allow content that would typically be deactivated for violating our Community Guidelines to instead remain on Pinterest, but we limit its distribution so that people don’t come across it accidentally. For example, we may limit distribution of content where the context is acceptable (such as condemnation or education).

We may limit or remove boards or accounts for repeated violations of the Community Guidelines or when they are dedicated to a policy violation. We may also remove an account after a single instance of a severe policy violation or if we determine that the account has repeatedly posted illegal content. If we limit or remove a board or account, that action applies to all of the Pins contained on the board or account. For example, if we limit the distribution of a board, all of the Pins on that board will also be limited in distribution. In addition, boards whose distribution has been limited will not be visible when viewing someone else’s profile. If we deactivate an entire account, all of the content (Pins and boards) on that account also are deactivated and no longer available to anyone on Pinterest. In certain circumstances, before an account is deactivated, we may place additional restrictions on its use of Pinterest, such as limiting the account’s ability to post or save content. You can read more about account removals (also known as deactivations or suspensions), here. 

We strive to help Pinners find content that is inspirational, relevant and safe. Content that our systems predict may not meet those criteria may be shown less often or less prominently, even if we haven't determined that the content necessarily goes against our Community Guidelines. We may also implement additional product features to improve a Pinner’s experience. For example, we may apply a sensitivity screen in situations where our systems indicate that content might not be appropriate for all audiences. We may also limit certain features on Pins, such as turning off comments or not showing related content, when we think they may be unsafe or when appropriate to protect minors. 

You can read our full Community Guidelines here.

We believe promoted content can play a big role in helping people create a life they love, which is why we want ads to be some of the best stuff you see on Pinterest. To that end, our team manually reviews some ads before allowing them to be shown to Pinners — though some ads may be reviewed automatically. For example, our systems may automatically review and approve an ad if it’s submitted by an advertiser with a history of policy compliance.

When we become aware of a violation of our Advertising guidelines, we’ll take action: 

You can read our full Advertising guidelines here.

We believe that when people find great products from trusted merchants, it can empower them to do things they care about. When we approve a merchant, they gain access to Pinterest’s merchant products, such as Catalogs and Product Pins, which are subject to our Merchant guidelines.

When we become aware of a violation of our Merchant guidelines, we’ll take action: 

You can read our full Merchant guidelines here.

Our moderation practices are always evolving to keep up with new behaviors and trends and to create a more positive place for the people on our platform.

We enforce our policies through automated tools, manual review and hybrid approaches that combine elements of both. These systems may use machine learning as well as logic-based rules. Where appropriate, we may take into account information provided by trusted third parties and industry tools. You can read more about our methods in our transparency reports.

The mechanisms used to address different potential policy violations may vary based on the state of available technology, the volume of violative content and other factors such as the complexity of evaluation. We continue to iterate and evolve our tools and expect ongoing improvements going forward.