This updated Enforcement page will be effective November 12, 2026. Until the effective date, you can view our current Enforcement page here.

At Pinterest, our mission is to bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love, and keeping Pinterest a positive place is central to how we enforce 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.

We use our Community Guidelines to define what is and isn't allowed on Pinterest. This page explains how we enforce those guidelines. When we identify content or behavior that violates our Community Guidelines, we promptly take action:

• Deactivation: When we deactivate content, such as Pins, boards, comments or accounts, that content is no longer available to anyone on Pinterest. Deactivation can also be referred to as “removal;” or
• Limiting distribution: When we limit the distribution of content, such as a Pin, board or account, it will remain accessible on Pinterest to the person who posted it and to anyone with a direct link, but it will not be recommended or shown to other users through discovery features such as search results, the home feed or related recommendations. In practice, this means the content is much less visible and generally cannot be found by users unless they have a direct link or navigate to it directly.

We determine whether to remove content or limit its 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, content that could be deactivated for violating our Community Guidelines may remain on Pinterest, but we limit its distribution so that people are less likely to come across it accidentally. For example, we may limit distribution of content where it is shared for educational or condemning purposes.

We may limit or deactivate boards or accounts for repeated violations of the Community Guidelines, or when they are primarily used to share policy violating content. In some cases, we may also deactivate an account after a single instance of a severe policy violation. We may also deactivate accounts that repeatedly post violating content, including manifestly illegal content, or show signs of repeated misuse of Pinterest.

If we deactivate an account, the content associated with that account, including any Pins and boards, will no longer be available on Pinterest. In some circumstances, we may impose additional restrictions on an account before deactivation, including limiting the account’s ability to post or save content on Pinterest. If we limit or deactivate a board, any Pins saved on that board will also be limited or deactivated as a result.

You can read more about account removals, also known as deactivations or suspensions, here.

We strive to help Pinners find content that is inspiring, relevant and safe. In some cases, content may be shown less often or less prominently if our systems indicate it may not be suitable for broad distribution, even if we have not 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, or provide helplines and additional resources if a Pinner searches for a sensitive topic on Pinterest.

In some cases, we may limit certain features on Pins, such as turning off comments or not showing related content, when we think additional safeguards are appropriate, including to help protect minors and other vulnerable users. You can read more about our teen safety settings here.

You can read our full Community Guidelines here.

We believe promoted content can play an important role in helping people find inspiration on Pinterest, which is why we want ads to be some of the best content you see on Pinterest. To that end, our team reviews some ads before allowing them to be shown to Pinners. This review may be manual or automated, depending on circumstances, including the advertiser’s history of compliance with our policies.

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

• Rejection: When an ad is rejected, the ad will not be shown on Pinterest. We may reject an ad before ever showing it to anyone, or after the campaign has already begun to run, for example, in response to a report or as a result of our review processes;
• Limited approval: In some cases, an ad may run, but with restrictions. For example, it may only be shown to people in certain regions or to people over a certain age; and/or
• Advertiser removal: When we remove an advertiser, they no longer have access to Pinterest’s advertising tools. This doesn’t affect their ability to use other Pinterest products unless a separate enforcement action is taken under other applicable policies.

You can read our full Advertising Guidelines here.

We believe that when people discover great products from trusted merchants, it can support a positive experience on Pinterest. When a merchant is approved, they gain access to Pinterest’s merchant products, such as catalogs and product Pins, which are subject to our Merchant Guidelines. Merchants are also responsible for complying with applicable laws, regulations and industry standards.

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

• Deactivation: When we deactivate a product Pin, that Pin is no longer available to anyone on Pinterest. Deactivation can also be referred to as “removal;”
• Limiting distribution: When we limit the distribution of a product Pin, that Pin will continue to be accessible on Pinterest, but it won’t be featured in recommendation or discovery surfaces, such as search results or the home feed; and/or
• Merchant rejection: If a merchant is rejected or removed at any time, they will be denied or lose access to Pinterest’s merchant products, including catalogs and product Pins.

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 Pinners.

• Reporting policy violations: Reports are how you can tell us if you think content or behavior on Pinterest is in violation of our policies. Reports can be submitted in-product or via the Help Center by users and non-users alike. In certain circumstances, we may also provide a dedicated reporting form for specific types of reports, for example where required by local law or for intellectual property violations.
• Reports under local law: Government authorities, and in some regions, Pinners and non-users, as well as other third parties, can report content that they believe may be illegal in their country. We may restrict access to such content within the relevant country if it violates local law but does not violate our policies. In limited circumstances, due to the functionality of our tools, we may deactivate content globally instead of restricting access to it only in that country. We may also deactivate accounts that repeatedly post illegal content.
• Appealing decisions: Appeals are how you can tell us if you think we made an enforcement error. Appeals can be submitted in-product, via the Help Center, or by clicking the one-click appeal link in an enforcement notice email we sent you. We review appeal requests and may update our enforcement decision if we determine that we made a mistake, or in some cases to allow users another chance to comply with our rules. We may also use automation to handle appeals more efficiently, for example by expanding a decision made on one Pin to other similar Pins. Appeals availability may vary for some product features or in some locations and some Pinners may have additional appeal options or mechanisms under their local law.
• Addressing misuse: We may take actions to restrict or prevent the processing of reports or appeals from people who abuse these channels by repeatedly submitting clearly unfounded reports or appeals. For example, we may take such actions where the same user submits a high volume of reports or appeals in a short period and the vast majority of which are not actionable, or otherwise uses these tools in a spammy or abusive way with respect to their reports against content on Pinterest. To prevent abuse, we may limit the number of reports or appeals a person can submit for a period of up to one year. We may also limit the number of times that a particular decision can be appealed.

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.

• Automated actions: Our automated tools use a combination of signals to help identify and take action against potentially violating content. These tools look at different signals to help us identify content that may violate our policies. For example, our machine learning models assign scores to content added to our platform. Our automated tools can then use those scores to perform appropriate enforcement actions.
• Manual actions: We manually review and take action on some content through our human review process. Content, including Pins and boards, actioned through this process may include those identified internally and those reported to us by users, non-users and third parties.
• Hybrid actions: In some cases, we use hybrid actions that combine human review with automated enforcement. For example, if a team member determines that a Pin violates our policies, automated systems help expand that decision to enforce against machine-identified matching Pins. Depending on the volume of matching Pins, a hybrid action may result in a number of Pins actioned or none at all.

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. These systems and processes help minimize the amount of time violative and illegal content is present on Pinterest. We continue to iterate and evolve our tools and expect ongoing improvements going forward.

• Links: We may moderate content based on links (URLs) associated with that content. For example, we may block the creation of a Pin, board or account that links to an inappropriate website, or we may deactivate or limit distribution of an existing Pin, board or account that links to an unsafe domain. Additionally, we may also block the associated unsafe domain.
• Text: We may moderate content based on text associated with that content. For example, we may deactivate or limit content that contains violating text, or we may decline to show search results or ads in response to queries that contain policy-violating or sensitive text.

Last updated: November 2026