Pinterest has announced some new initiatives to ensure creators from minority groups receive equal representation on the platform, including a commitment to partnering with more diverse groups, and a new “Community Information” option so businesses can list their relative affiliations.
As explained by Pinterest
“As we continue to build a platform for everyone, it’s important that the ideas Pinners discover and take action on are inclusive of our global community. It’s hard to feel inspired if you don’t feel represented. Which is why we’ve taken actions like increased the quality and coverage of our skin tone ranges feature and improved the technology to detect multiple skin tones in top search results.”
Furthering this, Pinterest says that it will now ensure that 50% of the managed creators it works with come from underrepresented groups.
And as noted, Pinterest is also adding a new Community Information tab in business profiles, which will enable retailers, advertisers and creators to self-identify if they’re from an underrepresented group, so that their content can be highlighted in relevant spaces.
Users with business profiles can update this information in their settings.
It’s the latest in Pinterest’s ongoing efforts to maximize inclusion, which have been further spurred by the recent #BlackLivesMatter protests.
As Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann noted at the time:
“With everything we do, we will make it clear that our black employees matter, black Pinners and creators matter, and Black Lives Matter.”
Shortly after this statement, Pinterest was forced to reassess its internal inclusion policies after two former employees spoke out about their treatment, due to racial bias, within the organization. That’s likely added more impetus to Pinterest’s push for inclusion, and inclusive tools, which is now driving its actions to improve in this respect.
In addition to this, Pinterest also recently appointed Salaam Coleman Smith, a former Executive Vice President of Programming and Strategy at Disney, to its Board of Directors. The announcement is in line with Pinterest’s commitment to broaden the diversity of the platform’s management and oversight team.
