There is a growing number of animals being teased and tortured on video on social media, according to a new report by the Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition (SMACC).
Source: Animals Saver/Youtube
SMACC is a section of Asia for Animals organization and the new report revealed that between February and May 2022, 200 videos depicting animals being tortured by teasing were shared on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
The spotlight report called “Teasing as Torture” is the first in a series of reports from SMACC on animal cruelty across social media platforms. The report found that macaque monkeys were in 69 percent of videos, which makes them the most popular victims of the growing trend of this abuse.
The teasing seen in the videos caused the animals psychological distress and physical harm. Animals have been recorded as they’re being starved, physically abused, and made to perform various humiliating tasks.
Animal cruelty is prohibited on all social media platforms, however, it often still ends up on the platforms. Youtube was recently sued over videos of animal abuse. Videos of people torturing animals have remained on platforms for months and SMACC says that the platforms are not doing enough to take these videos down.
SMACC has been trying to work with these media giants to tackle the rise in animal cruelty videos, but it has been very difficult.
“SMACC has yet to receive any response from all but one company and the coalition states that even securing a dialogue with the platforms has been extremely difficult,” SMACC said in a press release.
With contemporary society’s fixation on gaining popularity on social media, people often take drastic measures to gain views and “likes” across various websites. This could be tolerable if not for the fact that many of these people exploit animals to reach a sense of pseudo-celeb status. It is never ok to use an animal for entertainment, and we hope that these platforms will finally do what’s right and do something about these emerging videos!
Read more below to learn about how animals are abused for entertainment and why this is extremely inhumane:
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