I find it sad just how bad Pinterest has gone

Like so many social media platforms, Pinterest has gone way down the plug, and sadly I don’t think it was redeemable.

Way back in the early 2010’s, when there was no AI or shit algorithm, you uploaded what you wanted — no spam, slop or mass editing. That was the way it should be.

Inevitably, with the rise of online protection laws, AI junk effort (both the users and the staff) and mass internet creeps, Pinterest has become a cesspool of utter crap. All the best images gone — either banned for crap reasons, or the former account owners are driven away, or they may still exist out in the aether but the damn ai algorithm makes it impossible to find.

Sadly, as many people here point out, Pinterest is completely (and out of control) so sodden with AI that it’s barely even worth using anymore.

Today, I randomly remembered a bunch of images I’d seen and, feeling nostalgic, I went to look. I typed in some search words related to the pre-AI age images I used to love. Instead, I was met with nothing but AI generated images. Crap, crap, CRAP!!! I couldn’t believe how far it had fallen.

In some way, it almost makes me hope that the dead internet concept will come true, if only to slap open the eyes of these big AI corporations and force them to scale back the damage they are doing, and maybe, just maybe, formerly decent platforms like Pinterest might possibly return to some form of normalcy. For now though, I think I’ll retire from that ‘platform’.

To be clear, it’s not AI images in and of themselves I am complaining of. I have no issue with such things in moderation (like say you upload 10 natural images, complemented with 1 or 2 AI things. That is fine for me). My gripe is with the sheer mass of uploads and the way such things have vastly changed the social media/image sharing platform landscape in the last 5-6 years.

Mini-rant over, thanks for reading (if you did).

6 points · 17 comments · view on lemmy.world

17 Comments

schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 12h (15 replies)
ReconciliationTime22128@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 12h (14 replies)

Your point being?

schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 12h (13 replies)

You are complaining about people posting AI slop after you posted AI slop the day before.

Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 12h (3 replies)

Holy shit 😂

ReconciliationTime22128@sh.itjust.works · -3 pts · 12h (2 replies)

Oh look, you used an emoji! The junk effort of conversations!

Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 11h (1 reply)

😂

ReconciliationTime22128@sh.itjust.works · -2 pts · 11h

Pfft. That all you got? Poor thing.

ReconciliationTime22128@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 12h (8 replies)

I’m not complaining about AI slop itself, but the sheer mass of it on the platform. Plus the use of AI in the algorithm. I don’t mind the use of AI, my point is I can’t stand how rampant it is there now. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear. Also I posted 1 AI image, that doesn’t even compare to 1 million.

ReignOfTerror@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 11h (7 replies)

When 1 million people post "just 1 Ai slop image" that's how you get Pinterest.

ReconciliationTime22128@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 11h (6 replies)

I didn’t post in on Pinterest though. I posted it here. Once.

And to be clear: accounts on Pinterest don’t just post once — if they did, we would not be in this mess. They post multiple times though out the day. Thats how Pinterest has ended up in its mire, and it’s the point I was trying to make.

ReconciliationTime22128@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 11h
[ removed ]
ReignOfTerror@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 11h (4 replies)

Sounds to me like you aren't too broken up about Pinterest then and you're wanting lemmy to become more like it by posting that shit here too

ReconciliationTime22128@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 11h

Again, I posted 1 image, not multiple ones. I don’t know how you can get that I’m not upset with Pinterest from that. You’re misinterpreting what I’m trying to say if you think I like Pinterest

Unique_Emerald_Sol_I@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1d (1 reply)

Take this with a hefty dose of salt as I'm just a random passer-by, but for as long as I've known of its existence (and just for clarity's sake, I'm talking about long before genAI was a thing), Pinterest has been unusable. I've never known of artists uploading their own work and you thanked the three Graces if there was an artist name attached to an upload. Searching for anything on Pinterest was never successful for me.

I understand some artists used to go onto pinterest to find random inspiration from clothing et cetera, but that just feels like google with extra steps to me. Maybe I was just never the target audience.

ReconciliationTime22128@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 17h

That’s because you’re looking at it through the wrong lens. I’m not really talking about as an artist. Back in the day, Pinterest was more used as a social media platform centred around images, for people to share pics of tier family, their day, what they found interesting etc. Rather like how YouTube was originally intended to be a dating social media site before it pivoted. I don’t know the original intent of what Pinterest was meant to be, but I remember that’s how Pinterest was used at the time.