Ranked 20 of 20 social networks by recommenders
Criticized more than recommended: critics say its feed is full of AI slop; those who recommend it cite design, housing and project ideas and moodboards.
5 people recommended Pinterest in Hacker News comments, 1 had mixed feelings and 35 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
Summary written by Claude from the comments below.
41 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- mixed feelings
- 1
- warn against or regret it
- 35
The record
Recommended in 4 of 12 months
In 5 different threads.
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
- Recommended in 5 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- The biggest thread supplies 20% of its recommendersNeeds half or less, met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 38 of the 41 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Clutters Google search results
“Never ever saw a point of sticking around. Constantly getting annoyed at some Google search pinterest links”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation” “Google image search was semi-useless for years due to being spammed by login-walled pinterest images”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation” “Pinterest is so bad it's one of those sites I just skip over on search results.”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation” - Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Kagi Assistants”
Feed filled with AI slop
“no sympathy for Pinterest and other services destroying themselves in the clamour to jam AI and feed algorithms into everything”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation” “The slop can come from anywhere, including captive apps like Pinterest, so why use Pinterest?”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation” “This company exemplifies the "dead internet". No way they grow, let alone hit their targets.”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation” Declining quality and enshittification
“Pinterest has been enshittifying itself and the Internet at large for quite a long time.”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation” “the quality of the site code has gone down significantly in the last couple of years”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Finding zombies in our systems: A real-world story of CPU bottlenecks” “In my eyes they are in the same class of Facebook, uservoice, Pinterest, Quora etc.”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Bitwarden Dual License Model” Accounts banned; domain often blocked
“Many people were insta-banned from Pinterest for "spam" after just posting one or two pictures.”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation” “Pinterest has the honour to lead the leaderboard from #1 tot #7 in the blocked domain list.”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation” “I hope whoever is running Pinterest sees they are the top 7 most blocked sites.”
Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “PC Gamer Recommends RSS Readers in a 37MB Article That Just Keeps Downloading”
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Useful for design and project ideas
“Pinterest is useful. I mostly use it to get industrial design ideas on some projects.”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Dear Pinterest: Stop It” “it already has a great collection of housing plan ideas”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “Launch HN: Drafted (YC P26) – Models for residential architecture”
Other social networks people recommend
The four most recommended other social networks, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Mixed | Criticize | Approval | Months | Had for | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mastodon | 201 | 56 | 202 | 50% | 12 | 3 yrs12 people | — |
| Bluesky | 180 | 103 | 347 | 34% | 12 | — | — |
| X (formerly Twitter) | 119 | 102 | 920 | 11% | 12 | 13 yrs13 people | — |
| 79 | 111 | 666 | 11% | 12 | 5 yrs10 people | — | |
| PinterestThis page | 5 | 1 | 35 | 13% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
38 of the 41 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“In my eyes they are in the same class of Facebook, uservoice, Pinterest, Quora etc.”
“One trick that works from IRL is building a moodboard.”
“The best search for my purposes historically has been on Pinterest”
“they have figured a way to manipulate rankings”
“the quality of the site code has gone down significantly in the last couple of years”
“Pinterest is suprisingly good”
“Pinterest's AI slop and ads have been a nightmare”
“it already has a great collection of housing plan ideas”
“so I can eventually break up with Pinterest”
“Pinterests built-in AI detection is literally useless.”
“Pinterest is useful. I mostly use it to get industrial design ideas on some projects.”
“Pinterests algorithms have beaten you 60 to 1...”
“They talk about protecting children but their solution is to harm everyone by risking our privacy”
“I hope whoever is running Pinterest sees they are the top 7 most blocked sites.”
“Never ever saw a point of sticking around. Constantly getting annoyed at some Google search pinterest links”
“The slop can come from anywhere, including captive apps like Pinterest, so why use Pinterest?”
“yet another useful and interesting tool exploited into unusability”
“knowing how to game Google Image search years ago is exactly how Pintrest got it's footing”
“Google image search was semi-useless for years due to being spammed by login-walled pinterest images”
“the sewer of internet image search”
“This company exemplifies the "dead internet". No way they grow, let alone hit their targets.”
“I used Pinterest for art references and inspiration and they have 3 issues that are entirely self-owned”
“Pinterest has the honour to lead the leaderboard from #1 tot #7 in the blocked domain list.”
“there were genuinely great resource for niche things like Japanese graphic design”
“Many people were insta-banned from Pinterest for "spam" after just posting one or two pictures.”
“Pinterest has been enshittifying itself and the Internet at large for quite a long time.”
“no sympathy for Pinterest and other services destroying themselves in the clamour to jam AI and feed algorithms into everything”
“Instead of browsing your board and the things you pinned in the past, what you're now shown are completely unrelated items”
“Pinterest is the OG slop, long before LLMs ever existed”
“the world is drowning in more pinterest google image search spam”
“Pinterest is so bad it's one of those sites I just skip over on search results.”
“so many ads it’s no longer usable”
“polluting search results with paywall/loginscreen results”
“it simply wastes too much valuable time”
“It’s flooded with AI generated content.”
“it's a marketing venue for manufacturing a lifestyle image that lets you extract money from people”
“Pinterest results are probably messing with AI crawlers pretty badly.”
“I really would not trust that company”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.