Pinterest says mass account bans were caused by an ‘internal error’

Pinterest has apologized for a recent wave of “over-enforcement” that erroneously deactivated many accounts. The platform has experienced some weird moderation issues in recent weeks, and outraged users reported their accounts had been suspended without warning or explanation. In response to many appeals, the platform cited unspecified community guideline violations.

The company initially addressed ban concerns with a statement saying that it will “continuously monitor for content that violates our Community Guidelines and accounts with violative content may be deactivated as a result.” This answer did little to soothe outrage from users who were calling for Pinterest to clarify how accounts had violated the platform’s guidelines, and complained that appeals to reinstate mistakenly banned accounts were not being processed, or being rejected without explanation.

On Wednesday, Pinterest issued an updated statement by responding to a support post it had published to X in July last year. “We recently took action on violations of our content policies, but an internal error led to over-enforcement and some accounts were mistakenly deactivated,” Pinterest said on Wednesday in an updated statement attached to an old X post. “We’re sorry for the frustration this caused. We’ve reinstated many impacted accounts and are making improvements to respond faster when mistakes happen going forward.”

Pinterest hasn’t given any specific details about what the “internal error” was, what caused it, or if it has been resolved. Some users reported that Pinterest was also deleting pins for seemingly random and inaccurate content violations, such as images of everyday objects being flagged for “adult content,” leading to speculation that pins and accounts were being reported by an inadequately implemented AI moderation system. Pinterest has since told TechCrunch that AI moderation was not responsible for the error.

Users who were mistakenly suspended in the past few weeks are starting to regain access to their accounts, according to reports on the Pinterest subreddit. Given how clumsily the company has handled the situation, however, some scorned users are in no rush to forgive the platform.