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US nonprofit Lady Freethinker staged a protest this week at Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, to urge the tech giant to take a proactive and more transparent approach to removing the onslaught of violent and disturbing animal abuse material on Facebook. The nonprofit group protested with signs and a van that displayed some of the disturbing images Facebook users have been commissioning and posting on the platform. Meta’s security staff reportedly took photos of the protestors’ signs and T-shirts but remained “friendly” since the activists were on public property, Lady Freethinker founder Nina Jackel tells PCMag.The UK nonprofit Action for Primates also sent a letter to Meta’s offices in London on Tuesday, asking Meta to shut down the thousands of Facebook groups, pages, and accounts that post and repost videos and images that mainly consist of small macaque monkeys being tortured, mutilated, and killed.In an interview with PCMag, Jackel explains that animal welfare groups have been investigating this problem on social media for about three years now. Videos of monkey torture initially made the rounds on YouTube and eventually migrated to Facebook.”Meta, as the parent company of Facebook, is responsible ultimately for what is on that platform, and unfortunately, we’re finding that videos of animal cruelty and torture are proliferating,” Jackel said. “It’s where people who enjoy watching sadistic videos of animal torture congregate and share their videos, and unfortunately Facebook is not doing enough to stop it.”
Protestors stand across from Meta’s HQ in California. (Credit: Lady Freethinker)
PCMag viewed some of the Lady Freethinker reports sent to Meta as well as numerous active and inactive Facebook posts depicting the extensive cruelty. Facebook groups ranging from hundreds to over 10,000 members each exist solely to share this material. The videos are extreme and include footage of monkeys being buried alive, crammed into jars, burned, or otherwise mutilated. Over 850 videos and images of monkey torture were found on Facebook between May and October 2023, according to a joint report from Lady Freethinker and Action for Primates published last year. Jackel estimates the true number of posts is well into the thousands. There’s also a slew of fake “rescue” content. In these posts, malicious individuals stage violence against animals, like puppies being attacked by snakes or deliberately harmed for views. Nonprofit groups like Lady Freethinker and Action for Primates have gone undercover to track and report some of these groups online. If one animal torture group on Facebook gets caught or flagged, however, its administrators simply migrate to a new Facebook group and notify their members in advance, Jackel says. Some of the users seeking the torture videos use specific keywords to find what they’re looking for on Facebook. Unsurprisingly, the Facebook accounts typically use pseudonyms to disguise their identities. While many of the harmful posts are reuploads or reposts, the original videos and images are typically commissioned by Western users who make cryptocurrency payments to those in regions with direct access to the macaque monkeys, such as Indonesia. The buyers use Telegram to communicate with the creators and coordinate their cryptocurrency payments, the nonprofits have found. Payments are typically made with Bitcoin or Ethereum, but sometimes the buyers use PayPal or CashApp. “Telegram is the main form of communication for the monkey torture rings, but then the videos trickle onto Facebook because for some reason people enjoy sharing (and watching) them there,” Jackel tells PCMag via email. Telegram is far less moderated than Facebook, and has issues with rampant scam bots, crypto scammers, and shady malware vendors. PCMag reached out to Telegram for comment.
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The FBI and US Fish and Wildlife Service have taken some action. An Ohio man, Ronald Bedra, pleaded guilty to commissioning and sharing monkey torture videos and images last month. In April, an Oregon man, David Christopher Noble, was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release for buying and distributing such videos.
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But that hasn’t stopped the material from spreading on Facebook. While Meta removed hundreds of these animal cruelty posts over the years, some of the malicious Facebook groups and their violent posts remain visible today. Lady Freethinker doesn’t have specific statistics on exactly how many posts have been removed, however, because Meta does not disclose when it takes action on content. The group wants Meta to proactively remove all of the torture videos and images, and prevent any from being posted in the future. An online petition addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has over 71,000 signatures at time of writing.It’s unclear why Meta hasn’t blocked or flagged certain keywords common among these torture groups, like it has on Instagram with potentially dangerous content. When an Instagram user searches “anorexia,” for example, a warning is displayed (the app still lets users click through to the results, however). Meta could also add to or refine its automated detection tools so that animal cruelty videos and images are automatically flagged and restricted before they’re even posted. Meta has previously said it has a media-matching database that automatically removes certain content, like select deepfakes, where some posts that violate its policies are added. Meta has specific policies against coordinated violence, including toward animals. Written, visual, and verbal expressions of violence toward animals are not allowed, and the policies specifically state that “fake animal rescues” are also prohibited. Meta did not immediately respond to PCMag’s request for comment.
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