Why you shouldn't use Pinterest anymore!
The issue is, that I have received 91% of my blogs traffic in the past through Pinterest! Unbelievable. Basically, Pinterest threw me out of business! Quite a shock! I have since then created a new Pinterest account, but it is simply impossible to recreate the thousands of pins (more than 23k!!!) that I have created in the last 7 years. I was a member of many group boards and had more than 15k followers. Now I have 1 follower with my new account... I can´t ask with my new account to become a member of a group board either, because I am not adding any value.
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| ALL GONE!!! MY PINTEREST ACCOUNT WITH 15,254 FOLLOWERS AND 23,946 PINS GOT SUSPENDED! |
However, I don´t want to tell you all to not use Pinterest anymore, because I feel pity for myself, but for another reason: ironically my account got suspended, because Pinterest claimed that I am spamming (again I am not), but when I go on Pinterest now with my new account, I see nothing but stolen images from me (and others) that actually lead to spammy sites!
I got suspended for spamming, but my images are all over Pinterest leading to spammy websites! I have reported 2 weeks ago almost 100 pins that were MY IMAGES stolen by spammers, leading to their spammy websites (in most cases these are online stores, disguised in some cases as a blog).
Why do spammers do that? They simply save themselves the time and hassle to create clickable images and steal content that fits their needs. All they want is, that YOU ALL click on these images. Ta-da: not only did you give them free traffic (and google ad revenue), but maybe you even buy something from their website, because I noticed the vast majority of these websites will lead to online-stores that sell stuff- for example skin care. In many cases they pretend to be a blog- but that is only a disguise. They are not real bloggers. They pretend to be and then write about their own products in their articles- making you want to buy their bs.
I have a couple of examples for you, so you see what I mean. Check out these examples of images below. These are all MY IMAGES. In many cases it is even MY FACE! But when you click on them, they lead to a spammy website and not to mine.
Below is a before/after image of me and this one is allover Pinterest. Apparently the spammers loved this image. But it leads to spammy websites and not to mine. You can see my original article to Makeup Mistakes that make you look older here.
Below it leads instead to allforfashions dot com and iwomenhacks dot com and beautycrash dot com but not to my site.
These are MY LIPS and you can read my original article here. But this pin leads to beauty-graph dot com.
My face, my image but I am not model hairstyles dot club. Here is my fishtail tutorial.
These were just a couple of examples of stolen images and I could go on and on. This is absolutely nuts! I could sit here all day long and report just my own images that have been stolen- and who knows how many images on Pinterest are stolen! I can only detect my own ones -of course -but I am guessing that the number of stolen images is outrageously high on Pinterest. And it really brings me to the question: why is it possible on Pinterest to pin an image from someone else and CHANGE the damn link on it? That should not be possible from anyone else than the creator of the pin!
And I have reason to believe that Pinterest can easily see, who the rightful owner of an image is, because when I reported 2 weeks ago almost 100 images (before I got tired and stopped) to Pinterest, I noticed something.
Here is the process what I had to do for each and every single image (yes, this is way too much! It is basically a hassle to report a stolen image!).
How to report a stolen image on Pinterest!
On the pin, click on the three-dotted line and then you click on "This infringes my copyright".
Then you click on "My intellectual property".
Then you have to give some personal information. I skipped to give them my address and typed an "X" to overrule this option and Pinterest still removed all stolen images. In this step you also have to proof that you are the rightful owner of the image, in the best case with a link to the original image.
As a last step you have the option to say if you want all instances of this image to be removed and if the account should get a strike. Confirm that all information is accurate, submit and ready.
You see how I could click “Remove all”? That means Pinterest can detect the same image and remove all instances of it. Of course, it would not be a smart move to click on this if you have still a Pinterest account that is not suspended, because even your own image would get deleted. But since my original account was suspended, all images that are copies of mine are basically stolen and I want them all to be removed. However, that this option is available clearly, shows that Pinterest is able to detect all instances of the image- so they should also be able to see: WHO pinned this THE VERY FIRST TIME and have with that the rightful owner of the image!
I wonder if Pinterest has an interest in keeping spammy websites on their platform, since spammers probably also use the paid ad option from Pinterest, which I have never done. I am certainly not paying Pinterest any money! Is this how far we have come? Of course, it is all about money! So, a paying Pinterest account is worth more than a real blogger? Because spammers spend money on Pinterest?
Anyhow, it took Pinterest less than 24 hours to remove all my reported pins and yes: I also clicked on “Strike” on all my pins that have been stolen. Yes! I want those spammy websites to get their accounts closed. I see some of these spammy Pinterest accounts have millions of followers. People think these accounts would offer valuable information, but they are only stealing content from real bloggers.
My point why you should not use Pinterest anymore is, you don´t want to support spammy websites, correct? And from what I see most content on Pinterest leads to spammy websites, so I don´t feel like Pinterest is a safe platform anymore. Even if you don´t click on the images and give spammers therefore no traffic or sales, you are still supporting them in re-pinning stolen images.
So, get off of Pinterest and delete the App!!! Don't support spammers!
Just my 2 cents.
