Facebook Breaks Its Own Rules On Animal Cruelty and Trading

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From dogfighting to fake animal rescue videos and monkey torture, animal cruelty is becoming an increasingly popular form of entertainment. ACCO member Lady Freethinker is exposing these cruel and illegal activities through undercover operations and investigative reports. Lady Freethinker has found hundreds of accounts and thousands of posts on social media platforms that promote animal cruelty, despite these posts being against these platforms’ community standards.

Facebook Facilitates Dogfighting

Some posts advertise puppies that had been sired by champion fighters. Others show dogs chained up in compounds or mauling each other, displaying telltale scars and open wounds. Posts related to dog fighting can be found easily on Facebook, even though dogfighting is a felony crime in all 50 U.S. states.

In their investigation, The Deadly Underground World of Dogfighting on Facebook, Lady Freethinker presents evidence that Facebook has epically failed to enforce its own policies against animal cruelty and the sale of animals by letting dogfighters promote their activity globally.

During the five month study, LFT’s investigator tracked more than 50 Facebook pages and groups that posted dogfighting-related content, finding that the top five groups alone had more than 160,000 followers clicking through upwards of 2,000 posts explicitly promoting dog fighting or the trafficking of dogs for fighting.

LFT investigators explored how many of the pages and groups used coded terminology to describe dogfighting. For example, a “grand champion” would be described as “Gr Ch with five wins” or a promoter would refer to a dog fight box as a “4x4.” Once a user would like and engage with dogfighting content, Facebook algorithms would begin “suggesting” other groups that also promoted dogfighting. Further encouraging the viewer to watch dogfighting content.

LTF reported 26 posts that were in violation of Facebook’s own community standards. However, Facebook only removed 6 of the posts, and instead, urged the investigators to block, unfriend or unfollow the posts that they declined to remove that “may still be offensive or distasteful.”

Fake Animal Rescue Videos Proliferating on YouTube

The theme is always the same. A crocodile attacks a duck, a snake attacks a gibbon, an eagle attacks a snake. Every time, just as one of the animals is about to die, a human conveniently discovers the attack and saves the day. In reality, these videos are staged and cause stress, injury and death for the animals involved.

In 2020, Lady Freethinker conducted a three-month investigation on YouTube searching for animal cruelty videos. To begin their investigation, they searched for common keywords, including “dogfighting,” “cockfighting,” and “monkey torture.” Then, YouTube’s algorithms did the rest, automatically showing them similar content involving animal abuse.

Ultimately, LFT would identify more than 2,000 videos glorifying animal cruelty. Among them were fake rescue videos that collectively had more than 40 million views. If monetized, Lady Freethinker calculates these videos could potentially earn YouTubers nearly $15 million and YouTube itself over $12 million in ad revenue alone.

Over the period of investigation, YouTube removed just 185 of the 2,000 videos identified in Lady Freethinker’s report. After the report was covered in The Guardian, YouTube announced it would take action to ban fake animal rescue videos and took down all of the videos on Lady Freethinker’s list. Since then, more than a hundred videos have been posted and it continues to grow unabated.

In May 2021, Lady Freethinker ran another test, using YouTube’s reporting system, and reported 10 random fake animal rescue videos, each on a different channel. All 10 videos were still available in mid-June.

Then, a National Geographic story came out, once again covering the issue, and YouTube took down nine out of the 10 videos National Geographic reported, including three on Lady Freethinker’s list.

This is standard, social media sites typically only respond to illegal content when journalists report on the issue. Big tech only cares, when someone is looking.

As LadyFreethinker founder, Nina Jackel, points out, the responsibility to report problematic videos should not fall on viewers, “it is YouTube’s obligation to ensure that its platform is not promoting animal cruelty and that all abusive content is removed.”

Meanwhile, fake animal rescue videos are still being posted.

YouTube Sued Over Animal Cruelty Videos

As YouTube continued to ignore efforts to get clear violations of animal cruelty videos taken down, Lady Freethinker sued YouTube, accusing it of breach of contract.

The suit claims that the platform failed to live up to its agreement with users by allowing animal abuse videos to be uploaded and failing to take action when alerted about the content. According to YouTube’s Community Guidelines, animal abuse is not permitted, including videos in which humans prompt animals to fight or stage a rescue that places the animal in a dangerous situation.

“YouTube is aware of these videos and its role in distributing them, as well as its continuing support of their creation, production and circulation,” LFT’s complaint said. “It is unfortunate that YouTube has chosen to put profits over principles of ethical and humane treatment of innocent animals.”

Section 230 Gives Social Media Platforms Blanket Immunity for Hosting Animal Cruelty

Under a quarter-century-old law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube are not liable for hosting criminal content uploaded by its users. Because of this blanket immunity - and since removing content negatively affects profits - social media firms are not methodical about creating procedures to identify, remove and report content that features or facilitates illegal activity.

In other words, Facebook and YouTube may ban animal cruelty, but they don’t enforce their own rules. Rather, its own algorithms help perpetuate violent criminal acts against innocent animals.

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Articles

YouTube Sued Over Animal Abuse Videos, Accused of Not Enforcing Ban

ACCO activists Nina Jackel of Lady Freethinker said the site had ignored efforts to get clear violations taken down. YouTube said it had removed hundreds of thousands. Read the NY Times article.

YouTube: Profiting From Animal Abuse

As a result of this report, YouTube banned all fake animal “rescue” videos from its platform. ACCO investigator Lady Freethinker will continue to monitor the platform and hold YouTube accountable to remove animal abuse videos. Read the report.

The Deadly, Underground World of Dogfighting on Facebook

Despite the widespread prohibition of illegal dogfighting, this cruel activity is easy to find on social media platforms, facilitated by the rapid growth and widespread use of the Internet, and the difficulties enforcement agencies face in tackling this largely hidden crime. Read the report.

Facebook Used to Promote Illegal Dogfighting, Puppy Trading, Animal Rights Group Finds

Following an investigation, Lady Freethinker (LFT), a Los Angeles-based nonprofit animal rights media organization, concluded that Facebook failed to enforce their own policies against violent content and the sale of animals by frequently allowing dogfighters to promote their trade to global users on the social media platform. Read the Newsweek article.

Facebook ‘gives global platform to illegal dogfighting’

Facebook has been accused of giving a global platform to dogfighting after an investigation found the site is being used by fight organisers and unscrupulous puppy traders. Read the Guardian article.

Facebook used as a platform to promote dog fighting, report finds

Facebook has come under criticism for not doing enough on dog fighting, a practice which is illegal in numerous countries around the world. The report, published by animal rights organisation Lady Freethinker, highlights how dog fighting content is easily found on the platform, and how the company has failed to enforce its own policies against the practice. Read the Mashable article.