Pinterest smartphone app. Image: I AM NIKOM/Shutterstock
Pinterest was one of the few western social media sites accessible in China.
China has blocked popular scrapbook site Pinterest, making it the latest internet service – alongside Twitter, Facebook and Google – to be blocked.
Pinterest is a social media platform that lets users ‘pin’ items of interest, from art to home décor, fashion, food, furniture, technology and more.
The company had escaped the notice of Chinese authorities and was one of the few western social media sites that had remained freely accessible in China.
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However, according to GreatFire.org, a censorship monitoring service that checks the accessibility of sites in China, Pinterest has been inaccessible for the past eight days.
GreatFire.org reports that Pinterest is currently 87pc blocked in China.
Pinterest was started in 2009 by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp, modelled on the idea of a scrapbook for things that you love and are influenced by.
More than 150m people worldwide use the site every month. 70m users are in the US and 80m are dotted around the world. In Ireland, about 200,000 ideas are saved every day across various categories.
Globally, Pinterest boasts more than 100bn ‘Pins’ and more than 2bn ‘Boards’. 80pc of users access the platform via a mobile device.
While Pinterest is not a major social media player in China, compared with services such as Weibo and WeChat, it had still attracted a following.
Testament to this was the fact that a number of Pinterest clones had begun popping up in China in the last year or so.
Pinterest smartphone app. Image: I AM NIKOM/Shutterstock
