Popular social media platform Pinterest is now labeling generative AI content. The app, which earned a reputation as fertile ground for design inspiration related to hand-crafted goods and human artistry, has recently been plagued by an onslaught of “AI slop,” something its regular users have been complaining of on Reddit and to Pinterest directly. The GenAI content was often used to redirect people to spammy sites, according to a recent report. Pinterest’s labeling news coincides with an earnings report of $1.15 billion in Q4 revenue, marking an 18 percent increase year-over-year.

It was the first quarter in which Pinterest broke the $1 billion revenue mark, the company notes in an earnings release. It comes at a tumultuous time for the mood board social platform.

Last month, Futurism published a report headlined “Pinterest Is Being Strangled by AI Slop,” detailing genAI content “frequently ranking in the top results for common searches” across categories including “home inspiration and DIY hacks, fashion, beauty, food and recipes, art, architecture, and more,” often linking to “AI-powered content farming sites that masquerade as helpful blogs, using Pinterest as a tool to draw in viewers to useless chum content just to cash in on lucrative display ads.”

These faux destination sites are helmed by fake bloggers, complete with AI-generated “headshots,” Futurism wrote, adding “a prominent red button, affixed beneath the fake author’s bio, implores site visitors to ‘Follow Me on Pinterest.’”

The report lamented Pinterest failing to flag the fraud. Now that has changed. “We have taken steps to help ensure the responsible use of GenAI,” Pinterest says in a Help Center post.

“The labeling of AI-generated or modified content helps to provide relevant context about the content people see on Pinterest,” explains another section. “Pinterest may show a label on the close-up of an image Pin when we detect that it was generated or altered with AI. This is according to the IPTC Photo Metadata Standard.”

The IPTC standard “is primarily used for alt-text descriptions, but it also includes info on image editing processes and tools used in the image’s creation. As a result, Pinterest can use this to highlight AI generated content based on the data of the image,” Social Media Today reports.

On a related note, Pinterest announced that it will begin training AI models with user content, no matter when it was posted. “In other words, it seems that any piece of content, published at any point in the social media site’s long history — it’s been around since 2010 — is subject to being fed into an AI model,” Futurism writes.

“Pinterest’s privacy policy will be updated on April 30, 2025” to reflect the model training intent, reports PetaPixel, adding that “an opt-out option is available” for those who do not want their work used for training.