Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition (SMACC): Public Advice
Animal Rights/Vegan Activist Strategies Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Asia For Animals Coalition
August 2021

Vicious and cruel images and videos are often allowed to remain online, despite reports. Some such content is even monetised, and can be quite lucrative for both the content creators and the channels hosting the cruelty content.

Unfortunately the internet is host to a wide range of images and videos depicting animal suffering, ranging from that which is llegal (for example, canned hunting ) to illegal (such as illegally kept exotic pets) and from unintentional cruelty (such as taking part in wild animal 'selfies') to obvious and intentional cruelty (such as live burial of animals).

These images and videos are often allowed to remain online, despite reports. Some such content is even monetised, and can be quite lucrative for both the content creators and the channels hosting the cruelty content.

What can I do to help?

There are many ways you can help. Here are our suggestions:

If I watch the videos am I adding to the problem?

Each time the video is watched its number of views increases, and therefore so does the popularity of that video or channel, from the platform's perspective. Social media platform's algorithms can mean that the animal cruelty videos are then pushed to the tops of feeds encouraging more people to see them when browsing. It can also mean that the videos gain advertising spaces increasing their prominence to hundreds, sometimes thousands of social media users and the cycle continues.
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We acknowledge that the majority of people may watch these videos and disagree with the acts of animal abuse - however, by that point it is often the case that the video has increased in popularity. We advise seeking as much information as possible before deciding whether or not to press play. Examine the video still images, examine other videos uploaded by the user, read the title, description or the comments by other social media users - often this will tell you all you need to know.
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Be wary of the emerging trend of fake rescue videos. These videos may seem kind and caring, but in fact animals are purposely put in dangerous situations or sometimes purposely injured so that the filmmakers can appear to the viewers to be rescuing them from the situation or helping them with their injuries. Oftentimes these animals are infants (macaque babies, kittens, puppies) who may have been removed from their mothers or family groups, as they make easy targets. Again, examine the users' other videos and if the same animal or type of animal seems to be repeatedly being 'rescued' then do not watch, share or engage with the video. Report it immediately to the platform.

For more details, visit SMACC.

 

Read: Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition (SMACC) 2021 report (PDF)

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