Pinterest Hates Queer People

Or at least this queer personal & small business and that's the conclusion I've come to since they refuse to give me answers.

Nov 12, 2024

I’ve been a verified business on Pinterest for about 4, almost 5 years - until November 11th, 2024.

Pinterest was a big traffic driver and income stream until they changed their app integration with Shopify back in 2022-ish. Since then it’s like everything hit a brick wall. The short of it is they changed how product based pins are shown on their platform supposedly for the better. 🙄

A month ago I logged in to the Pinterest business hub - the only place that I will run ads occasionally because it’s the only place I see anything meaningful. I was given this message at the top - “Merchant’s product descriptions and categories do not meet the necessary requirements” … odd, because last I checked Stationery, Home, and Apparel Goods do in fact belong and the Pinterest rec is to check for things like spelling errors and that products have original descriptions - which check & check. Also my product categories are listed in multiple places on my website.

With zero appeals aka no chances to defend myself. I wrote support anyway after spending a solid almost two weeks trying to figure out what item(s) could possibly be flagging the warning.

And THAT is when things got weirder.

I got a reply the same day & pretty quickly but now my reason was updated without warning or justification to “Merchant does not meet our policy on prohibited products” like WTF -

Needless to say I was a ~little~ fucking pissed.

… I’ll spare you the full email, but I did go point by point for their ENTIRE Merchant Guidelines because again… WTF…

And all I got was the cooperate bullshit of “we’re sorryyyyyyy but we can’t tell you what rule you did or did not break but your request is now closed byeeeeeee”

And yes, Jess and I have some beef right now - they are definitely not my favorite person in the world.

Even in the mentioned Advertising Guidelines page - I do not see any place that I would violate any rules. However potential theories include the use of the word “fuck” on one design - but I’ve never used that in an ad nor would I because it’s too niche, designs centered around voting (even though I never endorse a party or candidate), a reproductive health designs (if they count those as “healthcare products” which they are not), or one of the many LGBTQ+ designs for who knows what reason.

Oh and as a ✨bonus round✨ - a got a pop-up that was like “heyyyyyyy want to schedule a meeting with your ‘account manager’?…” Which by the way, I have never had a direct contact or an account manager. What a fucking slap in the face.

SURLEY someone who is trying to figure out why they are getting removed from the very program they can even RUN SHOPPING ADS in and just have their pins distributed organically - you know the WAY PINTEREST WORKS - yeah I want to hear from from a no name person and give you money *right* now.

So again, WTF Pinterest?

Pinterest is for some reason blocking me and will not tell me why. Is it because I make art that supports trans kids & queer youth? Do you not like that I bring awareness to causes like reproductive healthcare & mental health access for all? Was it that I was encouraging people to vote and use their rights as US citizens? Or do you hate trans people so much my Trans Live Matter statement got me banned?

I put what I give a shit about right on my homepage - I don’t hide behind it. This list is ever growing and adapting and flowing (and TBH I need to pair some of these down because it’s a tad repetitive) but at it’s core the values can fall basically into these categories: Let Queer & POC Folks Live, Healthcare & Mental Care for All, Fuck the Rich.

PS I’m not alone in this - there are many, many threads on the business community forums for Pinterest asking for advice on this problem going back over the last few years. All with the same general problem - one day everything is fine and the next without explanation the verification is pulled.