The woes of posting online

[CountVonNumenor]

Looks like I am back at the Shrine, but not with something I would have liked to talk to as one of the "rare instance of CvN coming back to the Moriya Shrine". However, as I do not think this will be visible anywhere else, I will just do it here:

I have been using Pinterest for many years now (probably at least since 2019), but in recent times the platform started to have a lot of issues with the filtering of content. I wanted to express my own point of view on the situation on the dedicate subreddit, but surprise, surprise, my thread has been automatically removed the second I clicked "Post". And since no moderator actually answered since my original attempt at trying to contact them, I guess my second best option was to post in a place I am familiar with and perhaps would have helped make the situation a little more visible. Therefore, buckle in, this is going to be an experience of all times... (the original thread can be found here)

 

 

I am a monster...

..at least in the eyes of Pinterest. A bit over a couple week ago, another user was talking about the issue of Pinterest reporting art for being... well, art.

(second attempt at posting this thread; first time it was automatically removed, and I am still trying to figure out why)

In the past month, I have started my own collection of art. Paintings that are usually found in museums, art galleries and the sort. But as I was adding new content to the gallery (either saved from other users of the platform or uploaded from Wikipedia), I ended up getting drowned in content violation reports. To be fair, it is partially my fault, as about half the collection represents nude paintings, and Pinterest really has been on the offensive recently against such content. However, if checking out the content guidelines posted by the guys themselves, it says very clearly that "[...] nudity in paintings and sculptures and in science and historical contexts is OK".*

I did get quite a of reports, but the account is still running. For each violation report I got, I sent an appeal. In about 80-85% of the cases, Pinterest changed the status from "adult content" to safe. At some point, the whole board in itself was put under Limited Distribution, but following an appeal, it became perfectly safe somehow... The closest thing to that kind of content I have put was a painting by Courbet, and that was AFTER the reports started flowing just so I could take a piss on this whole situation.

And it's not like I was posting outright porn images/videos and/or hentai like other users used to do (speaking of which, why did there use to be so many accounts with seemingly Indian-sounding names that were done solely for that kind of content?). I remember that, among the people who decided to follow my content, one of them was a gateway towards all the content to the kind as he was subscribed to thousands of accounts posting porn. My rule of thumb on Pinterest has been, at least until earlier this year, that "you are always 2-3 accounts away from finding porn".

Recently, I have not received any new content violation report, so I guess they might have just given up? Or at least gave me a break. At least the attacks on classical art have ceased for now, but I still do understand why would they go after something anyone could see if they went to an art museum/gallery. That EU transparency report sure must have scared the shit out them...

Spoiler

And since still on the topic of content rating, following all those reports, I have a single question: how did "La perle" by William-Adolphe Bouguereau end up being rated safe, while "The night accompanied by the geniuses of study and love" by Pedro Américo remains "adult content", I have no idea...

(on a similar note to other people that got stupid repots, I also had a few for stuff like a painting depicting the battle of Dybbøl as "graphic violence" - and which Pinterest refuses to put back even now after appeals, and an the image of two tank miniature figurine kits, also blocked for "graphic content" - this time however, they did have at least one neuron left and put it back)

UPDATE since the original attempt at posting: the period of calm is over. Reports are coming in again, and I am facing more and more the situation of a post having been reinstate after appeal, but getting reported again not long after.

tl;dr - not even art is safe anymore

 

With this in mind, I am not very sure what to say about the use of the platform. I am not really going to get out of it due to the sunken cost, and the fact I have worked for 3 years to build a Touhou fanart archive worth of over 26K images at the time of writing this thread. But in case the platform might decide to go more harsh and outright ban me, I am preparing contingency plans: mass download of all images, along with backups of the website through Internet Archive/Wayback Machine. 

I hope next time I can come back with something more positive.

 

*Directly quoted from the community guidelines, "Content safety" section