Online platforms (Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter)) have hosted videos of infant macaques being set on fire, strangled, drowned, killed, and having parts of their bodies cut off — including limbs, genitals, fingers and toes.
Macaques consoling each other, Facebook image
A new report from animal protection groups Lady Freethinker (LFT)
and Action for Primates (AfP) reveals that the world’s top social
media platforms are allowing content showing infant macaques being
brutally tortured and killed to be posted and shared at an alarming
rate.
The report,
Monkey Abuse on Social Media, reveals
that online platforms Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and X (formerly
known as Twitter) have hosted videos of infant macaques being set on
fire, strangled, drowned, killed, and having parts of their bodies
cut off — including limbs, genitals, fingers and toes.
The groups logged 857 videos and images on social media depicting
monkey torture and abuse between May 2023 and October 2023. Many of
the videos remained live at the time of this report’s publication,
with other abusive content being posted daily. The videos logged are
just a snapshot of the monkey torture videos that were promoted and
circulated on social media platforms in this time frame.
The majority of the content was found on Facebook, with 768 videos
and images documented from the platform. Facebook is also where some
of the worst cruelty was found, including videos showing monkeys
being sealed inside glass jars, a monkey having their eyes drilled
out with a power tool, another having their arm ripped off at the
shoulder, and another who was hacked to pieces with a box cutter.
Of all videos where viewing data was obtained, which was about half
of all the videos included in the report, view counts totaled over
300,000,000.
Nina Jackel, founder and president of Lady Freethinker, stated:
“Violent, sadistic content has no place on social media, where users
of all ages may be exposed to horrific animal cruelty. We’re calling
on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and X to put systems in place to
swiftly remove posts promoting animal cruelty and take strong
measures to stop it from being posted in the first place.”
Dr Nedim Buyukmihci, veterinarian and co-founder of Action for
Primates, stated: “As a veterinarian with many decades of
experience, I have never witnessed the degree of sadism I have seen
in these videos. What the people are doing to these infant monkeys
is particularly grotesque and disturbing. It is untenable that any
social media company would tolerate the existence of such
individuals and groups on their platforms, not only because of the
appalling nature of the atrocities being inflicted upon non-human
primates, but also because of the harmful and damaging impact the
viewing of such content will have on people, especially children.”
Lady Freethinker and Action for Primates are urging everyone to
never watch, comment, share, or otherwise interact with monkey
torture videos, as doing so helps boost the posts’ visibility and
views, and is reminding everyone to always report videos depicting
animal cruelty to platforms’ reporting systems.