Community guidelines

Pinterest's mission is to bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love. That being said, not all content is inspiring - so we have community guidelines to outline what we do and don’t allow on Pinterest. These guidelines are our acceptable use policy, so if you find content that shouldn’t be on Pinterest, please report it to us. We use your reports to learn and evolve our standards, and work with subject matter experts to inform and update our guidelines.

Pinterest isn’t a place for antagonistic, explicit, false or misleading, harmful, hateful, or violent content or behavior. We may remove, limit, or block the distribution of such content and the accounts, individuals, groups and domains that create or spread it based on how much harm it poses.

We’re committed to presenting you with clear and transparent expectations that are easy to understand and follow. If you have questions or encounter problems on Pinterest, please contact us.

Pinterest isn’t a place for pornography. We limit the distribution of or remove mature and explicit content, including:

• Fetish imagery
• Vivid sexual descriptions
• Graphic depictions of sexual activity
• Images of nudity where the poses, camera angles, or props suggest pornographic intent

We do our best to to differentiate between pornography and other mature content. For example, you can save content about sexual health, breastfeeding, mastectomies, art, education and well-being with adult nudity given the non-pornographic context, but we may limit its distribution so people don’t run into it accidentally.

Pinterest isn’t a place for exploitation of people or animals. We’ll remove or limit the distribution of content and accounts involved in practices that risk harm to people or animals, including sexual, physical, or financial exploitation. That includes:

• Sexualization or sexual exploitation of minors, like grooming, sexual remarks or inappropriate imagery. If we find it, we’ll report it to relevant authorities such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
• Non-consensual images, meaning images of a private or sexual nature obtained or published without consent. This includes revenge porn and up-skirt images.
• Adult sexual services that may involve sexual or physical exploitation or trafficking, like sex cams and escort services.
• Human trafficking, slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labor.
• Other illegal commercial exploitation, like trading in organs or products made from human remains or body parts.
• The sale of wild animals or protected and endangered wildlife.
• Corpses, animal parts or products derived from cat or dog parts, or protected and endangered wildlife, including ivory.
• Irresponsible and harmful animal tourism or otherwise exploitative practices like organized animal fighting.

Pinterest isn’t a place for hateful content or the people and groups that promote hateful activities. We limit the distribution of or remove such content and accounts, including:

• Slurs or negative stereotypes, caricatures and generalizations
• Support for hate groups and people promoting hateful activities, prejudice and conspiracy theories
• Condoning or trivializing violence because of a victim’s membership in a vulnerable or protected group
• Support for white supremacy, limiting women’s rights and other discriminatory ideas
• Hate-based conspiracy theories and misinformation, like Holocaust denial
• Denial of an individual’s gender identity or sexual orientation, and support for conversion therapy and related programs
• Attacks on individuals including public figures based on their membership in a vulnerable or protected group
• Mocking or attacking the beliefs, sacred symbols, movements, or institutions of the protected or vulnerable groups identified below

Protected and vulnerable groups include: People grouped together based on their actual or perceived race, color, caste, ethnicity, immigration status, national origin, religion or faith, sex or gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition. It also includes people who are grouped together based on lower socio-economic status, age, weight or size, pregnancy or veteran status.

Pinterest isn’t a place for misinformation, disinformation, mal-information or the individuals or groups spreading or creating it. We remove or limit distribution of false or misleading content that may harm Pinners’ or the public’s well-being, safety or trust, including:

• Medically unsupported health claims that risk public health and safety, including the promotion of false cures, anti-vaccination advice, or misinformation about public health or safety emergencies
• False or misleading content about individuals or protected groups that promotes fear, hate or prejudice
• False or misleading content that encourages turning individuals, groups of people, places or organizations into targets of harassment or physical violence
• Conspiracy theories
• Content that originates from disinformation campaigns
• Factual information that’s published or deliberately modified to erode trust or inflict harm, such as changing or omitting of context, date or time
• Fabricated or meaningfully manipulated visual or audio content that erodes trust or causes harm

Civic participation misinformation:

• False or misleading content that impedes an election’s integrity or an individual's or group's civic participation, including registering to vote, voting and being counted in a census
• False or misleading information about the dates, times, locations and procedure for voting or census participation
• Content that misleads voters about how to correctly fill-out and submit a ballot, including a mail-in ballot, or census form
• False or misleading information about who can vote or participate in the census and what information must be provided to participate
• False or misleading statements about who is collecting information and/or how it will be used
• False or misleading information about public safety that is intended to deter people from exercising their right to vote or participate in a census
• Content that encourages or instructs voters or participants to misrepresent themselves or illegally participate
• Content apparently intended to delegitimize election results on the basis of false or misleading claims
• Threats against voting locations, census or voting personnel, voters or census participants, including intimidation of vulnerable or protected group voters or participants

Pinterest isn’t a place to insult, hurt or antagonize individuals or groups of people. There are good reasons to express criticism, but we may limit the distribution of or remove insulting content to keep Pinterest a positive, inspiring place; this includes:

• Manipulated images intended to degrade or shame
• Shaming people for their bodies or assumed sexual or romantic history
• Sexual remarks about people’s bodies and solicitations or offers of sexual acts
• Criticisms involving name-calling, profanity and other insulting language or imagery
• Mocking someone for experiencing sadness, grief, loss or outrage

We’ve also put together some resources for you to protect yourself.

We don’t allow content that reveals personal or sensitive information. We remove:

• Personal ID and passport information
• Private contact information and addresses
• Online login information (usernames and passwords)
• Photos of private people that they don’t want posted online
• Personal financial or medical history

If you come across unwanted photos of or information about you, you can reach out to us through our Help Center. You’ll find an option for exposed private information under “Report a policy violation.”

Pinterest isn’t a place for content that displays, rationalizes or encourages suicide, self-injury, eating disorders or substance abuse. We’ll limit the distribution of or remove such content, including:

• Self-harm instructions
• Suicidal thinking and quotes
• Graphic or otherwise triggering imagery
• Promotion of self-harm
• Mocking of people who self-harm or who have attempted or died by suicide
• Images of accessories used to self-harm
• Negative self-talk and insensitive humor about self-harming behavior

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or is considering hurting themselves, we have resources in our Help Center where you can get free, confidential and immediate support.

Pinterest isn’t a place for graphic violence or threatening language. We limit the distribution of or remove such content, including:

• Content that shows the use of violence
• Disturbing scenes from before or after violent events
• Threats or language that glorifies violence

In a few cases, we allow the saving of disturbing images dedicated to remembrance and advocacy, but limit distribution of such content in public parts of the platform.

Pinterest isn’t a place for violent content, groups or individuals. We limit the distribution of or remove content and accounts that encourage, praise, promote, or provide aid to dangerous actors or groups and their activities. This includes:

• Extremists
• Terrorist organizations
• Gangs and other criminal organizations

We work with industry, government and security experts to help us identify these groups.

Pinterest isn’t a place for trading or selling of certain regulated goods—products or substances that can cause harm when used, altered or manufactured irresponsibly—or for the display or encouragement of dangerous activities. We limit the distribution of or remove such content and accounts, including:

• Individuals and unlicensed retailers offering to sell, purchase or trade alcohol, tobacco, drugs and weapons, including firearms and accessories, firearm parts or attachments, or ammunition
• Content from or about unverified, unapproved or rogue online pharmacies
• Offers, attempts, or instructions to bypass purchasing laws and regulation
• Instructions for creating lethal or toxic substances
• Instructions for creating lethal weapons, like bombs or grenades, including 3d printed weapons
• Commercial sales of marijuana, marijuana products and paraphernalia
• Commercial sales of certain weapons and attachments 
• Harmful pranks or challenges that risk imminent physical harm or extreme emotional distress, especially if showing or encouraging the participation of minors
   

We don’t allow accounts that impersonate or misrepresent their affiliation with any person or organization. If you have a fan or commentary account for a public figure or brand, make it clear through your username or Pinterest profile that you aren’t officially affiliated with them.

All of our Community Guidelines apply to Story Pins, comments, messages, and tries posted on Pins. We may limit the distribution or remove violations of the Community guidelines. This includes:

• Irrelevant tries
• Private information
• Unsolicited chain mail
• Criticisms using insulting language
• Comments and solicitations of a sexual nature
• Unsolicited or irrelevant product and business promotion.
• Hateful or shaming remarks like comments about physical appearance

To respect the rights of people on and off Pinterest, please:

• Don’t infringe anyone's intellectual property, privacy or other rights.
• Don’t do anything or post any content that violates laws or regulations.
• Don’t use Pinterest’s name, logo or trademark in a way that confuses people (check out our brand guidelines for more details).

To protect the Pinterest platform, we ask that you please:

• Don’t access, use or tamper with our systems or our technical providers’ systems.
• Don’t break or circumvent our security measures or test the vulnerability of our systems or networks, except as part of an authorized Pinterest bug bounty program.
• Don’t use any undocumented or unsupported method to access, search, scrape, download or change any part of Pinterest.
• Don’t try to reverse engineer our software.
• Don’t try to interfere with people on Pinterest or our hosts or networks, like sending a virus, overloading, spamming or mail-bombing.

• Don’t collect or store personally identifiable information from Pinterest or people on Pinterest without permission.

• Don’t share your password, let anyone access your account or do anything that might put your account at risk.

• Don’t attempt to buy or sell access to your account, boards, or usernames, or otherwise transfer account features for compensation.

You can’t use Pinterest if it would be prohibited by US sanctions. Personal accounts and business accounts are currently not available in North Korea.  Business accounts are currently not available in Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea or Syria.

We want the inspiration and ideas on Pinterest to be high-quality and useful, so we remove spam when we find it. We ask that you be considerate of others' experiences on Pinterest and don't spread spam or engage in spammy behavior. 

Our guidelines around spam are:

• Don't use automation that hasn't been explicitly approved by Pinterest. This includes unauthorized services that automatically perform actions on your behalf. You can find information on approved partner tools on our Partners website.
• Don't create or operate accounts that aren't authentic, create accounts en masse, or create new accounts for the purpose of violating these guidelines.
• Don't create or save content that is repetitive, deceptive, or irrelevant in an attempt to make money. To learn how to make great Pins, you can always refer to our creative best practices.
• In general, don't attempt to make money from Pinners or Pinner web traffic in ways that are misleading, detract from the Pinner experience, or don't add value for Pinners.
• Don't link to websites that are unsafe, deceptive, untrustworthy, unoriginal, or that facilitate or encourage spam. Websites should have original content that adds unique value for Pinners.
• Don't send unsolicited messages or make irrelevant comments in bulk, especially when these are deceptive or commercial in nature.
• Don't attempt to artificially manipulate distribution, clicks or other metrics, including but not limited to: buying or selling engagement, "stuffing" irrelevant keywords, generating inauthentic traffic, redirecting existing Pins to new destinations, using fake or compromised accounts to perform coordinated actions.
• Don't attempt to evade our anti-spam systems, for example, by using shorteners, redirects or intermediate websites to obscure a link's final destination.

What is a Paid Partnership?

We define a Paid Partnership as any content on Pinterest that features or is influenced by a business partner for an exchange of value, such as if a business partner has paid or otherwise incentivized a user to save the content.

What are the Guidelines?

All Paid Partnerships must disclose the commercial nature of their content. In addition to abiding by the Community Guidelines, users that participate in Paid Partnerships are responsible for complying with:

• All applicable laws and regulations, including but not limited to, all advertising laws and Federal Trade Commission regulations including the FTC’s Endorsement Guidelines.
• All applicable disclosures required to indicate the commercial nature of your content (such as the use of #ad to indicate that your content is a Paid Partnership).
• Promoted Pins must also abide by our Advertising Guidelines.

To prevent inauthentic content and behavior:

• Make sure you’re posting relevant content to relevant boards. 
• Keep the content of your posts high-quality and avoid spammy behavior. 
• Save content you have an authentic interest in.

Don't incentivize or pay people to distribute content in large volumes, in spammy ways or for each Pin they save.

• For example, a business can't pay people for each board they follow or Pin they save. It's okay for a business to pay a guest blogger to curate a board for their brand or through pay-per-click payment structures (such as affiliate links), but they can't pay large groups of people to save specific Pins to artificially inflate the popularity of their content.

Affiliate links help content creators measure their contributors' impact and get paid for the work that they do to bring inspiring content to Pinners. However, affiliate programs can be targeted by spammers trying to make money by abusing the program and manipulating the Pinterest platform.

Our guidelines for affiliates are:

• Always follow our Paid Partnership Guidelines.
• In general, you should operate only one Pinterest account. That account should be your authentic presence on Pinterest.
• Affiliate content should be original and add unique value for Pinners.
• Be transparent about the commercial nature of your content. Don't use shorteners or redirectors that make the destination domain of a link unclear or that redirect for the purpose of hiding an affiliate parameter.
• Don't try to artificially manipulate Pinterest algorithms or Pinner traffic. Some examples of prohibited behavior include:
  • Using fake accounts to create or save your affiliate links.
  • Asking other users to save your affiliate Pins in a quid pro quo.
  • Asking other users to create Pins with links that include your affiliate identifier.
  • Creating affiliate Pins repetitively or in large volumes - marketers should follow our spam policy and use affiliate links in moderation

• Don't require people to save a specific image. Give people the ability to choose Pins based on their tastes and preferences, even if it's from a selection or a given website.
• Don't allow more than one entry per person.

• Don't suggest that Pinterest sponsors or endorses you or the promotion.

• Do review our brand guidelines for general rules about using the Pinterest brand.

Lastly, be sure to follow all relevant laws and regulations.