Thousands of animals around the world are subjected to acts of cruelty in grisly videos that make money for the platforms they are broadcast on. These are the conclusions ofa report published Wednesday 25 August by a coalition of animal welfare associations, Asia For Animals, which directly accuses YouTube, Facebook and, to a lesser extent, TikTok of complicity with this lucrative content.
Between July 2020 and August 2021, the survey authors documented nearly 5,500 video links featuring acts of cruelty, the vast majority on YouTube, cumulating over 5 billion views. This content takes many forms ranging from animal suffering caused unintentionally or through ignorance – like the videos of animals dressed as humans – at the intentional cruelty, more often than not, created on purpose to generate engagement, in the form of likes, comments and shares, and to earn financial rewards.
These are animals stressed, mistreated, buried, drowned or set on fire, kittens trampled on, puppies and ducks choked to death by snakes, monkeys drunk on vodka, fake rescue videos… Posted as entertainment and as views by billions of viewers, these sequences pass through the meshes of moderation systems and can bring millions of euros to their creators and the platforms that monetize them. The authors of the report estimate that YouTube earned up to $ 12 million in three months at the end of 2020 thanks to the sharing of content of this type.
Example of video pinned by the association
Crédit : Asia For Animals
Failing moderation
The majority of videos documented by investigators come from YouTube. Next comes Facebook, which also houses a significant portion. Both platforms obviously prohibit violence against animals in their regulations. But the report’s authors explain that repeatedly flagged videos sometimes stay online for a long time on YouTube and are often reposted after deletion. For its part, Facebook is struggling to fight against the distribution of these videos in private groups and in WhatsApp loops, protected by encryption.
“To date, animal welfare organizations have had very little success in tackling this problem and the giants of social media such as YouTube, Facebook and TikTok continue to leave it largely unanswered on their platforms “, deplore the authors of the report who affirm to have questioned them on this subject without effect.
The associations are calling on Facebook, YouTube and TikTok to work with experts to set new standards. They call for more effective moderation systems to be put in place to identify and remove animal abuse videos and improve user reporting mechanisms. The report also urges people who come across these videos to report them and not to view, share or interact with them so as not to increase their popularity. Solicited by RTL, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok have not yet reacted to the publication of this survey.
