Pinterest’s new Creator Code and Creative Fund is revolutionizing the way content is made and produced online.

Pinterest recently announced two new initiatives that are geared toward making the internet a more positive and inspiring place for all: A Creator Code that all creators on Pinterest must sign and abide by, and a $500,000 Creative Fund to support creatives from historically underrepresented communities.

For the past 11-years, Pinterest has been the place for people from all walks of life to share their ideas, inspire others, and try new things. Users are able to customize their experience by creating themed “boards” and adding “pins” that fit within each theme. Since its inception in 2010, Pinterest has worked to design positivity within their platform while attempting to keep negativity out. Their new initiatives, Creator Code and Creative Fund, are an effort to keep Pinterest focused on human beings – their happiness, their success, and their safety.

What is Pinterest’s Creator Code?

The idea for the Creator Code came in the middle of 2020 – a year that was rife with civil unrest, political and medical misinformation, and downright divisive rhetoric that spread to all corners of the internet. Pinterest conducted a global report that found that 60% of adults agree that some parts of the internet feel dark and scary these days, and they are worried about it.

Evan Sharp, Co-Founder, Chief Design and Creative Officer at Pinterest says that users frequently feel as though Pinterest is the “last positive corner of the internet.” The Creator Code initiative is an effort to protect their corner and make sure it is a positive place to discover new possibilities.

Pinterest explains their Creator Code as such:

“The Creator Code is a mandatory set of guidelines that lives within our product intended to educate and build community around making inclusive and compassionate content. It is intended to be proactive and empowering for Creators, rather than reactive and reprimanding.” 

Part of following the guidelines means that creators must acknowledge the responsibility they have to their audience and to keep Pinterest a safe and positive place to be, while online. Pinterest holds creators to their oath by manually reviewing each and every Story Pin that is posted on the platform to ensure it follows the guidelines:

• Be kind: Ensure content doesn’t insult or put others down
• Check my facts: Make sure information is accurate and factual
• Be aware of triggers: Practice discretion when it comes to visually sensitive content 
• Practice inclusion: Never intentionally exclude certain groups or communities
• Do no harm: Make sure any call to action or challenge is safe

How Does Pinterest Enforce the Creator Code?

In addition to employing real human beings (instead of bots or artificial intelligence programs) to inspect Story Pins, Pinterest has added a few new moderator tools for all users to use themselves. For example, there are new tools that users can use to highlight, filter, and delete comments under their posts. There is also a new feature that asks commenters to reconsider what they are about to post, if it seems to have language that is unkind.

The Creator Code also helps to make Pinterest a more inclusive place by allowing users to filter through search results by skin tone, so they can be inspired by ideas that will work for them. In 2019, Pinterest developed Compassionate Search, a curated collection of activities that were created with the help of emotional health experts. These activities are meant to help users with anxiety, depression, and other mental health disorders that prohibit them from fully enjoying their online and in-person experiences.

Furthermore, Pinterest was one of the first online platforms to ban political ads, political and medical misinformation, hate speech, bullying, self-harm, conspiracy theories, and other content that could potentially spread negativity and cause harm.

Pinterest has received praise from their users and even celebrity creatives, like Jonathan Van Ness:

“There are so many things that we encounter on social media platforms that are not life affirming, and really dehumanizing. That is why I love the Creator Code – it really focuses on positivity and inclusion, and that doesn’t mean we don’t have to talk about difficult things. It means that we are not dehumanizing, it’s not tearing folks down, it’s not negatively oriented, it’s not an echo chamber of hate. That is what Pinterest and the Creator Code does – it is allowing us to humanize each other and that is really important.”

Pinterest goes on to further their efforts to make the internet a safer and more pleasant place to spend time by partnering with their creators and supporting their endeavors with their Creative Fund.

What is Pinterest’s Creative Fund?

Pinterest’s new Creative Fund is a $500,000 initiative that highlights the inspiring creatives behind pins and gives them tools for success. Pinterest says that 50% of their creators come from underrepresented groups, and this initiative will help them build a global platform “where Pinners around the world can discover ideas that feel personalized, relevant and reflective of who they are.”

The Creative Fund provides financial and educational support for underrepresented communities through training, creative strategy consulting, and budgeting for content creation and advertising. In addition, Pinterest has given their creators the opportunity to monetize their pins, so they have the opportunity to be paid for the work they do on Pinterest.

Users appear to be excited about this new release from Pinterest. “Creator Code in Pinterest is a great move since it looks to eradicate negativity on the platform. Aside from reducing harmful content, the creators’ fund is boosting more innovation on the platform, hence popularizing it. ” Yongming Song, CEO, Live Poll for Slides explains.

“The popularity of Pinterest has grown tremendously owing to the influx of users and cross-website traffic. This traffic has made Pinterest more popular than both Twitter and Facebook. 

People add millions of pins every week, and many from all around the world are visitors. This success has made Pinterest a go-to platform for prospective marketers and creators.”

What Does This Mean for the Future of Pinterest?

It’s difficult to say exactly how Pinterest’s new efforts will pan out of the next few years. However, it’s easy to say for certain that Pinterest is further carving out a positive and safe corner of the internet for their users.

Creatives are so frequently inundated with negative messages about themselves and their work. Internet “trolls” attempt to get under the skin of people who are genuinely putting themselves out there in their most natural form – people who are using their creativity in an effort to make the world a more beautiful place to be. Pinterest is fighting back against these “trolls” and creating spaces for their users to be their authentic selves, without the fear of being told they can’t follow their dreams.