The third-party Pin Trading App has responded to allegations of AI misuse claiming the ad in question was created by an auto-enabled Meta feature.
Creator Ends Relationship With Unofficial Pin Trading App
Last week, Disney content creator catonmainstreet_ posted a video saying the Pin Trading App (which is a third-party app not officially affiliated with Disney) used her likeness in an unauthorized Facebook advertisement, in which her skin tone and Hispanic features were adjusted or removed outright with artificial intelligence, despite an agreement expressly prohibiting such use.
The allegation followed other complaints about the Pin Trading App’s use of AI-generated media and photographs belonging to other pin-collecting services, including content originally produced by us here at WDWNT.
Pin Trading App Responds
In a statement released on September 20, Pin Trading App co-founders Andy and Emily addressed Catherine’s video, stating, “Please understand that we take these allegations and accusations very seriously and want to be clear that there is absolutely no room for any type of racial erasure or discrimination of anyone’s ethnic traits or heritage in any capacity.”
They explained that Catherine (catonmainstreet_) had created content for them from February 2026 through July 2026, making 19 original videos for which they paid her $910.
She brought the AI ad to their attention on August 7 and they immediately disabled all ad campaigns on Meta. They discovered that Meta’s Advantage+ Creative Standard Enhancements were auto-enabled and this feature, according to Meta’s own documentation, will “automatically create variations of your ad with different text combinations, media enhancements and compositional changes,” and will “automatically adjust the aspect ratio, brightness, and contrast of your ad creative.”
Pin Trading App says it is this feature that resulted in the AI ad, although Catherine’s video was altered well beyond aspect ratio, brightness, and contrast. Pin Trading App did take responsibility for the error.
We now can acknowledge that this was the exact auto-enabled feature provided by Meta that automatically generated derivatives of all of our marketing ad creatives. At no point ever did anyone on our entire team intentionally attempt or instruct anyone or anything to alter Catherine’s features, heritage, or ethnicity in any capacity whatsoever. This was a systematic failure on our part and oversight for leaving this feature auto-enabled and we truly apologize for the lack of due diligence and confusion that this has caused.
Like many businesses, we relied on and trusted Meta’s suggested marketing features that were offered to us without any internal review. And this is where we ultimately failed as a company. These ad campaigns and the altered versions should have never run in the first place and we should have had much better safeguards in place to have caught it before it went public. We are accepting full responsibility for not verifying what the full scope of this Advantage+ Creative Standard Enhancement auto-enabled feature truly meant when it came to automatically generating different versions of an ad creative outside of the scope that it specified to us and what is made known and public of the feature itself and for not verifying the ad creatives that were in rotation.
Pin Trading App then addressed “the narrative that is circulating online that our team was the one who proactively initiated conversation with Catherine regarding a monetary, ‘amount to resolve the situation’.“
They shared their Instagram messages with Catherine regarding the AI ad, noting she said in her initial message, “i’d also like to understand how you intend to address compensation for the additional usage that has already taken place”.
They were not able to reach a solution regarding payment.
Although we understood internally that the matter was still unfolding behind the scenes and that there was more to learn about the situation, we wanted to immediately act in good faith to a valued creator and address her financial compensation request directly. It was never our initial intent to just simply pay to have this situation swept under the rug. Just like Catherine, we wanted to solve the matter at hand immediately but also wanted to address her questions about compensation respectfully. Unfortunately, we were unable to come to an agreement on Instagram direct messages.
On September 2, Catherine’s attorney sent Pin Trading App an 83-page Pre-Suit Settlement Demand letter requesting $85,000 in addition to other demands. In exchange, Catherine would “execute a mutual release.”
The deadline to respond was September 17. Pin Trading App states their team was “still in the process of reviewing and replying to the demand letter but was unable to respond by the deadline date.”
Consequently, Catherine posted her public video about the situation on September 18.
Co-founder Andy said “this situation hits deeply close to home.”
I am the son of two immigrant parents who left Vietnam to build a brighter future for their family here in the United States. I can understand and empathize fully with the message in the video regarding the importance of how critical it is that the physical features we inherit from our families connect us to our heritage, our culture, and our identities. English has always been my second language, and I am proud to carry on the traditions and heritage my parents have instilled in me throughout my entire life and I am so grateful to share that experience with my beloved partner and Co-founder, Emily.
He went on to say, “The insinuation that our company stands for intentional racial and heritage erasure and initiated and attempted to strictly resolve this matter via compensation goes against every single thing we believe as individuals.”
They apologized to Catherine and their users for “all of the confusion, frustration, and negativity this situation has brought to the community that we all love and call home.”
As a company, we are completely owning our mistakes and as the founders we are committed to learning from this situation to ensure this never happens again. We truly love and thank every single one of you for all of the support you have given us throughout this journey. We genuinely care deeply about creating a community where everyone feels respected, welcome, and above all, valued regardless of race, ethnicity, or background. Our promise to the community is that we will work and strive every single day to become a better company for our users, our creators, and the entire pin community as whole. We look forward to getting the opportunity to serve and earn back your trust and support.
Other Allegations
Pin Trading App did not address their previous use of AI to enhance photos or other allegations of content theft, including from pin collecting database Pin & Pop, which said earlier this year that Pin Trading App used their content without authorization. Individuals have also claimed their photos were used by Pin Trading App without permission or attribution.
As we shared in our previous post about the situation, the Pin Trading App has repeatedly published WDWNT photographs without our permission and posted content that plagiarized stories originally reported and written by WDWNT.
We attempted to contact those behind the account regarding the unauthorized use of our work but received no response.
WDWNT submitted multiple reports to Instagram regarding the account’s infractions involving our content. The account was taken down on multiple occasions following those reports but it has continued to return to the platform.
About the Pin Trading App
The Pin Trading App is officially listed as “Pin Trading – Scan & Collect” and is operated by Evergreen Apps LLC.
It advertises a database of more than 150,000 Disney pins, along with tools for identifying pins, estimating their values, creating collection boards, and maintaining lists of available and wanted pins.
The service offers 30 free scans before restricting users’ access to a monthly subscription for $14.99 or a yearly subscription for $39.99.
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