While Pinterest encouraged its users to report naughty, hateful, violent, and otherwise undesirable pins, the virtual corkboard also had a team focus on hunting down "suspicious, fake or spammy accounts." On Thursday, those accounts were removed, "for good."
A post on the official Pinterest blog explains that the site's dedicated spam team has been "hard at work investigating reports and building systems that detect, remove and prevent spam." Thursday's mass deletion of foul accounts is the culmination of several months of work.
"Removing these accounts helps protect the integrity of Pinterest and helps ensure that followers are real people who are interested in what you share," Marty Weiner, the site's engineering manager writes. As a result of Pinterest's efforts to cut down on undesired accounts, you may see that your follower counts took a slight dive. (Weiner explains that most users will see a loss of fewer than 10 followers, so don't panic.)
Of course, Pinterest continues to suggest that users block and report pins (and people) they think violate its community guidelines. This action alerts the dedicated spam team of potential issues and aids it in putting a significant dent in the amount of undesirable individuals and content on the site. "We’ll keep fighting spam and we appreciate your help in that effort," Weiner declares at the end of his blog post, sounding like a warrior about to march against a horde of orcs.
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