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Honestly, though, Pinterest was never a good ref tool.
this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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Yes it was, we need to stop doing this where AI ruins something and we go "well it was never good" yes it was, that's why it got popular. AI is running the Internet
No. No it wasn't. Pinterest bombards you with irrelevant images, tries to get you to click on as many things as necessary without making clear what is an ad or not, then forces you to create an account on their platform to view anything.
That's not even going into how it hosted artwork from other artists and never gave sources or credit, or had advertisements that used stolen art.
Pinterest was absolute trash. Has always been absolute trash. And its AI implementation doesn't particularly change how trash it is.
When I used to use Google, and then later with DuckDuck Go, I used plugins which allowed me to filter out certain domains from search results, specifically to get rid of all the Pinterest results.
Ah, Pinterest. The site I would go to to look at things, it would say "you can't look at things without an account" and I would say, "then I won't" ... and I would then leave.
Oh, don’t forget the search result that showed a pinterest image that you click on to see a high res version, but the image is nowhere to be found after landing on the pinterest site.
Even if you had an account it’s still shit.
duckduckgo's image search is the best way to peruse pinterest images
Everything needs a fucking account these days. The net used to be great, but it seems we're at an inflection point to see if it's just gonna keep getting worse. I'm not too hopeful unfortunately
Yeah I had enough of their crap to the point I got an addon that removes them from search/image results.
How is the AI/Non AI decided? It's very low resolution, but there dwarf on the right seems very detailed to be AI (at least pure AI).
I explicitly filter out pinterest from my search results because it's garbage
It's weird that the OP has such high regard for Pinterest. I have always seen it as search-result polution and never really understood why it exists, other than as proof that we need to have search functions like "-site:____".
There would be times in the past I would search something and the only result of an image or list would be Pinterest.
I would just go without.
Again, I was going off of OOP who apparently found use in the site.
Never understood what pinterest was for, either. Kinda like sharing images or links?, but it's almost impossible to find the source link of whatever people posted when they did so
Fun fact if they removed those images the other ones would scoot up. It's a reactive design.
Before Ai Pinterest had stolen pictures without crediting or linking to the real artists while this shit got pushed to every image search. I hope this will be its final nail in the coffin.
Before Ai Pinterest had stolen pictures without crediting or linking to the real artists
Truly they were ahead of the times.
People posting pictures without crediting or linking to the artist? Who would've thought that could happen on my Internet
Yeah that's what this guy is doing. Then he cries about "AI".
Not the best example
There was nothing useful on Pinterest before AI imagery either
When it very first started, it was a great visual bookmark service. I sew/crochet/craft, and it was nice being able to save a pic of the finished shirt and have it automatically linked to the pattern's website. Like most things, it went to shit after they tried to monetize it.
I have a couple of friends who use it like that. I hate when they send me links, it's like those people who used to spray you with perfume in department stores.
OOP apparently found use in the site, so that is what I went off of.
I’m trying to imagine how that is possible, Pinterest always showed up in google search results with something that looked promising but didn’t actually exist on their site. I can only imagine that it’s even worse now post-AI.
Me: Object Oriented Programming?!
"Organic Original Poster" (to differentiate from AIs)
I got screensavers and recipes I'd never make from them, how dare you
And these tweets are almost a year old. His Pinterest feed must just be a white screen by now.
Somewhat unrelated, but I'm glad to see more and more posts using xcancel.
Xcancel is just nitter. I think writing 'nitter.net' is easier than trying to spell cancel, lol. But it's good to have many different servers.
How is it possible to filter out those images? The ads are easy, but LLM content is harder when it comes to automatic removal.
Pinterest would need to hire people to better moderate their content.
Ostensibly the onus would be on the user not to post them in the first place (or at least tag them), but if the users are spammers then… shrug.
Maybe we should have small, networked clusters of minimal-profit communities interested in moderating themselves? Nah, the internet was never like that…
That would be nice, but who's going to pay for it? Because free hosting is pretty rare, nowadays.
That would be nice, but who’s going to pay for it? Because free hosting is pretty rare, nowadays.
The Fediverse is working OK. So are some image hosts like catbox.
I dunno about at scale, but the old idea is that nothing really needs to be the scale of Facebook, Pintrest or whatever. Bulk storage is reasonable. A single modern server can do a lot.
Add "-pintarest" without quotes to your search.
AI is not polluting, the users are… AI does only what is asked.
That true, but I don't think its a helpful way of looking at it.
Actually it is, always avoiding responsibility by putting the blame on tools instead of the users that pollute everyone’s timeline is not helping anything. If no one posts these pictures on Pinterest or any other platform then there wouldn’t be any.
I don't think it is about avoiding responsibility.
Often when people say that some thing is bad, they are talking about the effects of its misuse; and the goal is to reduce / prevent that misuse by persuading other people to change their behaviour. But it is generally easier to persuade someone that their tool is bad rather than they themselves are bad. If they believe the use of the tool is a problem, they may stop using it that way. But they will basically never come to believe that they themselves are the problem.
A big issue with AI is precisely how just a few people can inundate the rest of us with their mass-produced slurry of AI content.
Just like photography did once remove the painter from making a selfie 🤷🏼 The tools are not the problem, it’s the users that think they should put everything online as if it is a big achievement.
What is your genius solution to handle these naughty users, then?
If you fail to respond within 3 business days, we will continue with our plan to nuke OpenAI from orbit.
Where did I say I have a solution… I know at least one thing, and that is that blaming AI for this definitely wont solve anything.
Yes, I agree. OK, now let's say 99% of users online agree that low quality content shouldn't be posted online. And then imagine there is some kind of technology that allows the 1% of "bad users" (the ones who don't care about low quality) to upload a thousand times more than other users can. It would follow that 90% of content online would be from these users that only represent 1% of the population. Do you see the problem?
Pinterest was already a sinkhole, best to be avoided. My problem is de statement that the OP made. AI isn’t the problem, its the people that think their rubbish is great and push it into our face so to speak. If someone builds a crappy shed, we can blame the hammer but in reality it is the self-appointed carpenter that created the mess.
True but pinterest needs to ban AI
Or the users that post the bs… I think that would clean up much more.
Wow who'd have thought there were no real photos of ogres? I'm shocked.
but actual artwork does exist? so when you want art references for style references, why should you be forced to see a bunch of AI?