MONTREAL — Pinterest is sticking it to Sex.com.
Users are now banned from posting their favorite porn shots from Sex.com on the mainstream pin board creating a dust-up between the websites.
Sex.com creative director Iain MacNeil told TechCrunch, “Without contacting us, Pinterest banned all activity from Sex.com. Pinterest users can no longer pin any content from Sex.com nor can they view the site from older pins. We’ve unjustly been marked as spam. Our attempts to contact Pinterest have been fruitless. We want to know why they banned their adult community from seeing an alternative. Is it as simple as Pinterest is afraid of losing the adult content community despite the fact they do not respect users who use their site for adult content? Or is it that Pinterest does not believe a female audience for Sex.com is inappropriate?”
The move by Pinterest is causing waves because the site does contain nudity, albeit more erotic than hardcore. But if a user searches certain sex terms a message pops up saying, “Reminder: Pinterest does not allow nudity. Pinning or repinning photographs displaying breasts, buttocks or genitalia may result in the termination of your Pinterest account. For more information, see our Pin Etiquette and Acceptable Use Policy.”
And critics claim that Pinterest may be slamming Sex.com simply to squash possible competition (the two sites are strikingly similar in design).
The site is now marking all content from Sex.com as spam, raising MacNeil’s ire.
After one of the most famous domain battles in Internet history, Sex.com finally emerged as a hardcore Pinterest-like site, and according to the company it is gaining momentum.
“The most exciting prospect of Sex.com being linked through Pinterest was not just the potential growth for our site but also appealing to a female audience,” MacNeil said.
Right now a search for Sex.com on Pinterest reportedly loads only one shot and if clicked shows a message that says, “Sorry! We blocked this link because it may go to spam or other inappropriate content.”