Following an NBC News investigation last month into Pinterest that exposed how pedophiles used the service to nurture image boards of young girls, the company on Tuesday announced more safety measures for its platform, including a new set of parental controls and updated age verification policies, among other things. . However, the company also said that it will soon reopen some of its previously locked features to teens to once again allow them to send and share content with others.
The investigation tarnished Pinterest’s carefully crafted reputation as one of the last safe, positive places on the Internet. Instead, the report found that, like any other social media platform, Pinterest was at risk of abuse by bad actors. The report found that adult men were using the site to create image paintings of young girls, sexualizing innocuous images of children doing things like gymnastics, dancing, sticking out their tongues, putting on swimsuits, and more. Additionally, Pinterest’s recommendation engine was making it easier to find similar content because it would suggest more images like the ones the predators initially sought.
Immediately after the report, two US senators reached out to Pinterest to get answers about what had been done and to push for more safety measures. The company said it increased the number of human content moderators on its team and added new features that allow users to report “nudity, pornographic, or sexual content” content and accounts, including those that involve “intentional misuse involving minors.” Previously, it only allowed users to report spam or inappropriate cover photos.
Pinterest has also swept its platform to deactivate thousands of accounts — a move that could accidentally deactivate legitimate accounts in the process, according to some online complaints.
Now, the company is announcing more safety controls are in the works.
For starters, it says it will expand the age verification process. By the end of this month, if an income person under the age of 18 attempts to edit their birth date on the Pinterest app, the company will require them to submit additional information to their third-party age verification partner. This process involves submitting a government-issued ID or birth certificate and may also require users to take a photo ID photo.
Image credits: pinterest
In addition, Pinterest has announced that it will soon offer more parental controls. Parents and guardians of children under the age of 18 will have the ability to request a passcode before allowing their teen to change certain account settings. This will prevent a younger child from trying to change their account to an adult’s age – important because underage accounts have extra protection.
On Pinterest, teens under the age of 16 have private accounts by default and cannot be discovered by others on the service. In part, the reason so many pedophiles were able to spot photos of young girls is because they were using accounts where their exact age was not given.
In addition, boards and pins saved by teens under the age of 16 are not visible or accessible to anyone except the user as well. Messaging features and group boards are also not available for this demographic. But Pinterest says that will change soon, noting in its help documentation that it is “currently working to update these features so you can securely connect with people you know.” In a blog post, the company explained that it will soon reintroduce the ability for teens to “share inspiration” with people they know, “as long as they give them permission.”
Image credits: pinterest
Pinterest also promoted other teen safety measures in its post, including its ban on beauty filters, which have negative mental health effects, as well as its ban on weight loss ads and its policies against body shaming.
Unfortunately, the problems Pinterest has had, revealed by NBC News, aren’t limited to its service. The lack of regulation on social media, including outdated child online safety laws, has led to a kind of free-for-all in the United States in which companies set their own policies and make up their own rules. From a financial standpoint, there is little incentive to do anything that would make it difficult for people to register, use, and stay connected to their platforms, due to their ad-supported nature.
But despite tech execs pulling off numerous briefings over the years, Congress has failed to pass legislation to regulate social media. This has led to some states now drafting their own laws, as Utah just did, further complicating matters.
Meanwhile, parents and families deal with the consequences. As with anywhere else on the internet, when photos of children are released publicly online they can attract a dangerous audience, and platforms have historically not done enough in terms of simple safety.
Recently, there has been a growing awareness of this problem thanks to the work of creators like TikTok’s Mom.Uncharted, also known as Sarah Adams, whose viral videos helped explain how online scammers profit from creators’ content, including It’s the work of family vloggers, for the dangerous and the disgusting. purposes. She and others who covered the topic were calling on parents to hold off on posting public photos of their children online and to stop supporting creators who share photos and videos of young children.
Young people forced by their parents to create content online before the age of majority are also pushing for regulations that will protect future generations. Congress has not acted here yet.
Image credits: pinterest
But on Pinterest, it’s not necessarily parents who post children’s photos – children often use Pinterest, which parents tend not to consider, believing in the site’s “safe” reputation.
Today, about 450 million people use Pinterest per month, and 60% of them are women according to the official statistics of Pinterest. Millennials are the oldest age group while the second largest group of women are between the ages of 18-24. In theory, Pinterest’s policies should be limited to users 13 and over. However, the real demographics about Pinterest usage may not be recorded in online stats as children often lie about their age to use apps and websites intended for an older audience. In an annual study of children’s and teens’ app use by parental control software maker Qustodio, for example, Pinterest was the No. 3 social media platform in the US in terms of time spent. Worldwide, it was No. 5.
“Our mission is to bring inspiration to everyone to create a life they love, and it is the light that guides how we create Pinterest, develop our products, and craft our policies,” Pinterest emphasized in the ad. “As part of this ongoing work, we will continue to focus on ways we can keep teens safe,” she promised.