Social media giant Meta is under renewed scrutiny for allowing – and even rewarding – monkey torture content on its platform, Facebook.
For weeks, Facebook failed to remove disturbing videos of macaque monkeys (usually infants) being drowned, slapped, and choked – and the platform even awarded an account with violent content captions like “monkey suffocates, hardly breathes” with a Creator Badge.
“Meta isn’t just failing to enforce its own policies, it’s even doled out a ‘creator badge’ to sadists who post people torturing baby monkeys,” said Lady Freethinker Founder and President Nina Jackel.
According to Meta’s own guidelines, the “Creator Badge is awarded to accounts that meet quality, originality, and integrity standards.” This badge requires creators to post at least one Reel (a short 30-second video) per week to maintain it – which effectively encourages abusive accounts to produce and share more harmful content.
Facebook Is Failing to Stop Obvious Animal Cruelty
Meta’s existing policies explicitly prohibit content that depicts animal cruelty, yet enforcement remains inconsistent.
LFT and other members of the Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition (SMACC) became aware of these torture accounts, which collectively have over 100,000 followers who often cheer on the abuse by using “thumbs up” and “laughing face” emojis. One comment said, “Squeeze it longer and harder until its eyes pop out.”
Despite this evidence being reported to Facebook, the platform failed to take adequate action.
In one instance, SMACC reported a video of a baby macaque struggling to stay above water in a bucket, at risk of drowning, but Facebook responded that they had reviewed the video and decided not to remove it.
“The company needs to enhance and enforce strong content moderation tools now – before more egregious and dangerous content emerges,” said Jackel.
Background
The brutal, underground world of baby monkey torture was first exposed by LFT and UK organization Action for Primates (AfP) in 2021, when a group formed on mainstream social media and soon moved to encrypted chat where Westerners would purchase custom videos of brutal abuse of infant macaques from video makers in Indonesia. Since then, LFT and AfP have been tracking and reporting on the phenomenon, working with international law enforcement agencies, and calling on online platforms to stop the spread of videos depicting torture and abuse of primates.
Multiple individuals have been prosecuted following a multinational investigation by federal agencies. Ronald Bedra of Ohio (known online as “DemonSword SoulCrusher”) was sentenced to 54 months in prison for creating and distributing videos depicting acts of extreme violence and sexual abuse against monkeys. “The Torture King,” a.k.a Michael Macartney, was sentenced to three years and four months in prison for conspiring to make and distribute monkey torture videos. And Peter Stanley from the UK was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to three charges under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. Some court cases and sentencing processes are still ongoing.
