Pinterest safety settings

How to customise your home feed

Pinterest safety starts with ensuring the content you or your child sees is appropriate. This might mean highlighting content that positively impacts wellbeing or is appropriate for their age.

To customise your home feed:

Step 1 – From your feed, tap on your profile. Tap the 3 horizontal dots in the top right of your profile and select Settings.

Step 2 – Tap Home feed tuner and then Topics.

To add new topic, tap the red box labelled Add topics. Choose from the available topics to add to your feed.

To delete a topic, tap the tick mark.

Where to filter comments

Part of Pinterest’s safety settings include comment filters. Their community guidelines state that comments can be removed if they feature anything related to sexually explicit content, self-harm content, hateful activities and more.

However, comment filters can keep away additional comments that might trigger or harm a user.

To filter comments:

Step 1 – From your profile, tap the 3 dots in the top right corner and select Settings.

Step 2 – Select Social permissions and tap the toggle next to Manual filter to turn it on.

Step 3 – Fill in the words or phrases you’d like to filter out, separating each new one with a comma. Tap Save.

Please note that this only affects comments. To filter out content, you must customise your feed.

How to manage push notifications

Many social media apps make use of push notifications to alert users of updates. However, these push notifications often distract and increase screen time. Ensure you’re not endlessly scrolling on Pinterest by turning off these notifications.

To turn off push notifications:

Step 1 – Go to your account settings (go to your profile > tap the 3 dots in the top right corner > tap Settings).

Step 2 – Select Notifications and then By push notification.

Step 3 – Select which push notifications you’d like to turn off or choose to Turn off all at the top.

Where to set up privacy permissions

Pinterest safety starts with privacy. Although you might interact with other users on the platform, you can control how much information they or users outside the platform can see.

To set up privacy controls:

Step 1 – Go to your Settings from your profile by tapping the 3 dots in the top right corner. Select Privacy and data.

Step 2 – Tap the toggle to grey to turn a setting off. If it’s black, that means it’s on. For optimal privacy, toggle these settings off.

Privacy options:

Search privacy: whether your profile shows up in search engines like Google

Store your contacts: lets Pinterest access your device’s contacts

Data personalisation: these 4 options link to ads and cookies. In the same way a website stores cookies to give you relevant recommendations, the app may do the same if these are not turned off.

Turn on two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication can enhance safety on Pinterest by providing additional security. Offered by many social media platforms and apps now, two-factor authentication requires new logins to enter a secret code in addition to regular login details.

To set up two-factor authentication:

Step 1 – Go to your Settings and tap Security and log ins.

Step 2 – Tap the toggle next to two-factor authentication to turn it on. Your email must be confirmed with a unique password for this to be turned on.

How to report a Pin

While Pinterest has clear community guidelines, some Pins that go against these policies might make their way into a user’s feed. As such, it’s important to report this content to have it removed.

To report a Pin:

Step 1 – On the Pin, tap the 3 dots in the top right corner. Tap Report Pin.

Step 2 – Select the reason that best suits how it goes against the community guidelines. Select Report. You can also choose to block the user by tapping the toggle under Report.

How to block or report a user

To stay safe on Pinterest, sometimes you may need to block or report a user. You can block a user for any reason but won’t be able to interact with each other at all. You can only report a user for spam. If they Pin inappropriate content, you must report the Pin directly.

To block or report a user:

Step 1 – Go to the user’s profile. Tap the 3 dots right to where it says Follow (or Following).

Step 2 – Select Block or Report user for spam.

Step 3 – Tap Block or Report to finish.

Delete or deactivate your account

If you want to take a break from Pinterest, you can deactivate your account. You can reactivate it later. However, if you want to permanently get rid of all Pins and account information, you can delete your account.

To delete or deactivate your account:

Step 1 – Go to Settings from your profile. Select Account management.

Step 2 – At the bottom, select the applicable option (Deactivate account or Delete your data and account). Follow in the instructions after tapping Continue.