{"id":320329,"date":"2021-08-10T14:26:26","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T11:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/anti-semitic-merchandise-persists-on-pinterest-despite-restrictions\/"},"modified":"2021-08-10T14:26:26","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T11:26:26","slug":"anti-semitic-merchandise-persists-on-pinterest-despite-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/anti-semitic-merchandise-persists-on-pinterest-despite-restrictions\/","title":{"rendered":"#Anti-Semitic merchandise persists on Pinterest, despite restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<strong>#Anti-Semitic merchandise persists on <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pinterest<\/a>, despite restrictions<\/strong>&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image?fit=796%2C417&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2021%2F08%2FHate-Anti-semitic-Pinterest-The-Markup-hed.jpg&amp;signature=83d2ddef6c789de1e828f11c4e7f8659\" \/><\/p>\n<div>Entering the anti-Semitic term \u201c6mwe\u201d into Pinterest\u2019s search box won\u2019t yield any results but will offer an admonishment: \u201cPinterest isn\u2019t a place for hateful images, content or activities. Learn more about our policies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/fast.wistia.net\/embed\/iframe\/xo23fcyip6?videoFoam=true&amp;autoPlay=true\" title=\"Whats it like to be a startup founder in Barcelona? Video\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wistia_embed\" name=\"wistia_embed\" allowfullscreen=\"\" msallowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But searching through Pinterest\u2019s site from Google for the term \u201c6mwe hoodie\u201d easily produces dozens of pins for content that clearly violates Pinterest\u2019s <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/policy.pinterest.com\/en\/community-guidelines\">restrictions on<\/a> \u201chate-based conspiracy theories and misinformation, like Holocaust denial,\u201d content the platform says it has limited or removed.<\/p>\n<p>This backdoor to restricted content on Pinterest raises questions about the efficacy of the platform\u2019s moderation strategy, which focuses on preventing people from finding certain content on the site instead of taking that content down. While that strategy has drawn <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/mashable.com\/article\/pinterest-ipo-anti-vaccine-policy\">wide<\/a><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2019\/feb\/20\/pinterest-anti-vaxx-propaganda-search-facebook?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other\">praise<\/a>, it has also drawn criticism for failing to consider the ways that offensive content can spill over into other platforms and persist long after being hidden.<\/p>\n<p>The Markup found 64 pins featuring merchandise containing \u201c6mwe\u201d\u2013a term that, according to the Anti-Defamation League, is shorthand for \u201c6 million wasn\u2019t enough,\u201d a reference to the number of Jewish people killed during the Holocaust. During rallies attended by members of the right-wing group the Proud Boys, some of them <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adl.org\/blog\/proud-boys-bigotry-is-on-full-display\">were spotted<\/a> wearing clothing featuring a symbol of an eagle with the phrase \u201c6mwe\u201d below it.\u00a0(See <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/the-markup\/pinterest-hate\">our data<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>The Markup was able to save and organize these pins onto a private board. None of Pinterest\u2019s recommendation tools suggested content with these terms.<\/p>\n<p>The Markup also found nine pins for throw pillows, backpacks, <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">travel<\/a> mugs, and face masks featuring the words \u201cCamp Auschwitz\u201d over a skull and the words \u201cWork brings freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After The Markup shared our findings with Pinterest, the pins were removed. \u201cThere\u2019s no place for content like this on Pinterest,\u201d said Crystal Espinosa, a Pinterest spokesperson. Espinosa added, \u201cWhen we identify or are made aware of content that violates our policies, we review and take action.\u201d Asked why these pins were available on the platform, Espinosa explained that its moderation efforts aren\u2019t perfect, and that \u201cgiven the volume and complexity of content, there is always more work to do, and we also recognize that we have more opportunities to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no nuance required to make a judgment call on whether or not a \u2018Camp Auschwitz\u2019 throw pillow crosses the line,\u201d Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, told The Markup. \u201cThe fact that this hateful and offensive content is so easily accessible on Pinterest demonstrates how far tech companies still have to go to address even the most obvious examples of hate. If Pinterest wants to create a welcoming and safe space for all people, it must invest significantly more resources into its content moderation efforts going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cCamp Auschwitz\u201d pins all pointed to listings on Redbubble\u2019s marketplace that had already been removed. Redbubble spokesperson Marissa Hermo told The Markup that its platform identified these items as violations, and that they were removed the same day they were uploaded. \u201cWe have a suspend-for-review mechanism in place for specific topics, so this content should not have been available for public view,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Pinterest has been criticized in the past for using its search system to try to restrict harmful content rather than focusing on removing such content outright.<\/p>\n<p>Last year an investigation by <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/onezero.medium.com\/pinterest-hosts-sexual-images-of-young-girls-anti-vax-memes-despite-moderation-efforts-52d8a1007e1e\">OneZero found<\/a> that Pinterest\u2019s decision to just hide certain content rather than remove it outright from the platform allowed sexualized images of young girls, misinformation about the coronavirus and the vaccines, and content related to <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/onezero.medium.com\/pinterest-is-still-hosting-qanon-content-despite-new-ban-dcd7b63e3785\">QAnon<\/a> to persist on the platform, which the publication discovered through the same type of targeted Google search The Markup did. Pinterest has since <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.insider.com\/pinterest-qanon-is-latest-platform-to-ban-conspiracy-theory-content-2020-10\">announced that QAnon content is prohibited <\/a>on its platform, a move that the company put in place in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Google spokesperson Jane Park told The Markup that any website owner can remove content from Google\u2019s search index by first removing the content from their own site, and then using the \u201cOutdated Content\u201d tool to have it removed from Google. \u201cOur results reflect information available on the open web, and sites can choose if they want to have their pages indexed by Google,\u201d said Park.<\/p>\n<p>The Markup asked Pinterest why these results hadn\u2019t been removed from Google\u2019s index using such tools. \u201cWe have oversight of the content that <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ears on our platform and work with Google to expedite removal of links to content that has been removed from Pinterest. We\u2019re always working to speed up this process so that policy-violating content is not persistent elsewhere,\u201d said Pinterest\u2019s Espinosa.<\/p>\n<p>Before the coronavirus pandemic began, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/next-front-in-tech-firms-war-on-misinformation-bad-medical-advice-11550658601?mod=djem10point&amp;utm_campaign=The%20Interface&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=Revue%20newsletter\">Pinterest moved<\/a><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/next-front-in-tech-firms-war-on-misinformation-bad-medical-advice-11550658601?mod=djem10point&amp;utm_campaign=The%20Interface&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=Revue%20newsletter\">aggressively <\/a>to fight anti-vaccine misinformation on the platform by not returning results for related searches. But it appeared to leave the offending pins in place, allowing users to save and curate them on boards.<\/p>\n<p>In December 2020,<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/nazi-amazon-proud-boys-holocaust-1555192\"> Newsweek reported<\/a> on \u201c6mwe\u201d merchandise being sold on Amazon and other e-commerce sites. Amazon removed the products that <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a>week found.<\/p>\n<p>Content spreads quickly across platforms, which can create challenges for moderation. In August 2020,<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2020\/08\/03\/nancy-pelosi-fake-video-facebook\/\"> a manipulated video<\/a> of Nancy Pelosi (the second such viral video), which first appeared on TikTok, soon spread to other platforms. Both YouTube and Twitter <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2020\/08\/02\/politics\/fake-nancy-pelosi-video-facebook\/index.html\">promptly removed the video<\/a>, citing policies prohibiting manipulated media. A Facebook spokesperson told The Washington Post, however, that the video did not violate its policies, and left it up. Andy Stone, Facebook\u2019s policy communications director, also told The Post that Facebook had clarified its policy language and the video would have its visibility reduced.<\/p>\n<p>These artifacts of offensive content that may originate from one site and persist on another creates a unique problem that the big platforms\u2019 content moderation techniques don\u2019t really address, said Kate Klonick, assistant professor of law at St. John\u2019s University School of Law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is some liminal space in which these ideas are fomenting,\u201d Klonick said. And it\u2019s unclear \u201chow much responsibility each site has to clean off their material from other sites, and in the hallways between all of these companies, you\u2019re having this stuff getting trapped and being empty, but nonetheless the exoskeleton remains.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eric Goldman, an associate dean of research and professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, argued Pinterest may be taking the correct approach in some cases, in leaving content accessible. Platforms and services have a <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3810580\">wide range of remedies<\/a> to exercise before resorting to removal, Goldman said, which can have unforeseen, negative consequences.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you remove an item of content and there are anchors to that content somewhere else in the system, either comments are attached to it or inbound links, it breaks the conversation that might be taking place around that item of content,\u201d Goldman told The Markup. Leaving offensive content up may be distressing, he said, but it can be important when seen in a historical context. \u201cWhen items are removed, we lose a piece of our history that might be ugly, and that might be uncomfortable, but that also might be crucial to making sense of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But that seemingly dormant content, albeit somewhat harder to find, is far from innocuous.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the anti-Semitic pins The Markup collected led to inactive or removed e-commerce listings, but of the 38 links that pins connected to, nearly a third led to active e-commerce sites where the items could be purchased from T-shirt vendors such as donefashion.com, funnysayingtshirts.com, myclothzoo.com, teesbuys.com, teeshirtxyz.com, and teejabs.com. We reached out to each of these sites for comment but received no responses.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/pinterest-engineering\">Pinterest\u2019s engineering blog<\/a> regularly shares news about the company\u2019s latest efforts to moderate content that violates its policies. Recently, the company\u2019s trust and safety machine learning lead, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/pinterest-engineering\/how-pinterest-fights-misinformation-hate-speech-and-self-harm-content-with-machine-learning-1806b73b40ef\">Vishwakarma Singh, wrote<\/a>, \u201cToday our models detect and filter policy violations for adult content, hateful activities, medical misinformation, drugs, self-harm, and graphic violence. We plan to explicitly model other categories in our next model iteration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The moderation system, the blog says, uses machine learning and image recognition to look up new pins and boards that are created against models trained to identify policy violations.<\/p>\n<p>In its latest <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/policy.pinterest.com\/en\/transparency-report\">biannual transparency report<\/a>, Pinterest said offensive content was seen by a very small percentage of its 440 million monthly visitors. The report stated that 10 percent of users between October and December 2020 saw policy-violating pins categorized as \u201chateful activities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>This article by Jon Keegan was <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/themarkup.org\/2021\/08\/06\/anti-semitic-merchandise-persists-on-pinterest-despite-restrictions\">originally published on The Markup<\/a> and was republished under the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> license.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/anti-semitic-merchandise-persists-pinterest-despite-restrictions-syndication\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Anti-Semitic merchandise persists on Pinterest, despite restrictions&#8221; Entering the anti-Semitic term \u201c6mwe\u201d into Pinterest\u2019s search box won\u2019t yield any results but will offer an admonishment: \u201cPinterest isn\u2019t a place for hateful images, content or activities. Learn more about our policies.\u201d But searching through Pinterest\u2019s site from Google for the term \u201c6mwe hoodie\u201d easily produces dozens&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":320330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/tnw?filter_last=1&fit=1280,640&url=https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/08\/Hate-Anti-semitic-Pinterest-The-Markup-hed.jpg&signature=e0a69ec2514fe99d1c21ed7d98c25395","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}