Pinterest has announced its first-ever Creator Fund, which will commit money to supporting creators on the platform, and it's launching a new 'Creator Code' initiative aimed at encouraging good interaction on the platform.

First, on its new Creator Fund - Pinterest announced a new $500k funding program which it is going to use for providing support to creators from underrepresented communities.  As explained by Pinterest:

The program, currently only available in the US is created because we recognized that Creators and communities underrepresented on the platform needed to be promoted. In preparation for the first cohort, we decided to work with Creators from non-traditional backgrounds; principal ones were the realms of fashion, photography, food, and travel. They went through training and had a strategy consulting session and budget assigned for content creation and ad credits.

Program extension The company will also witness Pinterest continue working with creators from minority backgrounds, which is reiterated within the plan that 50% of the creators who are a part of the initiative are comprised of underrepresented groups.

The latest to join the fray of platforms providing direct funding for creators are Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, and audio social newcomer Clubhouse - all of whom have done so over the last several months. LinkedIn is exploring new incentive programs for its creators too.

The platforms, over time, have learned that such funding should be factored into the development plan so that the best creators are retained for once the top users leave, the audience goes along with them, as Vine painfully found out.

With Facebook and Google able to throw serious money at the problem, smaller platforms have to work to build comparable tools into their systems, which is why initiatives like this are so important to their longer-term viability. 

In addition, Pinterest is launching a new 'Creator Code' - a kind of agreement between creators to uphold certain standards in their platform interactions.
As Pinterest explains

It's hard to be creative in an environment that feels negative and filled with comparison. Not so on Pinterest. We lead with kindness and put your well-being as a creator first. See what happens when you create with a kinder community.".

The code, Pinterest says, will enforce the acceptance of a mandatory set of guidelines before Creators can post Story Pins.

The guidelines cover the key areas of on-platform civility:

Be kind: Don't post anything that hurts or offends someone
Check my facts: Share stuff that is correct and true
Be mindful of triggers: Exercise restraint with upsetting visual content
Practice inclusion: Never intentionally leave people or groups out of your content
Do no harm: Make sure anything that you issue as a challenge or call to action is safe
Pinterest has outlined each of the elements in more detail on a new mini-site.
It's an interesting way to encourage positive behavior, and while it doesn't add much beyond what Pinterest is already doing with its existing platform rules, the idea would be that by making this a more explicit focus, Pinterest can better help keep its platform more open and engaging in nature, code serving as a reference point for in-app actions.

And, finally, Pinterest is also introducing some new comment moderation tools, which would help in addition to keeping things civil.
Pinterest is now introducing some new prompts and notes to help keep the conversations friendly, while it's also adding some new comment removal and keyword filtering options, along with comment pinning to help highlight positive interactions.

Some interesting new elements for Pinterest, while the Creator Fund is truly the big announcement, the civility tools may prove to be a significant value, simple prompts like these being enough to have users think twice about what they're posting, and expanded impacts of such.

It may not be much for the creators to agree on a non-legally binding document to remain civilized, but it's a great experiment, which could contribute to making sure that all the creators present on the platform strive to make an improvement in the environment rather than getting involved in some negative elements.