Hundreds of Abusive Posts Removed for Violating Meta’s Policies Following Our Submission of a Shareholder Resolution
A milestone has been reached in our efforts to stop online animal cruelty and torture content: following the submission of a shareholder resolution by Lady Freethinker, Meta has removed hundreds of posts shared with them by LFT that Meta determined to be in violation of its existing policies. The company has also uncovered and removed numerous related accounts to stop the spread of animal cruelty posted for “entertainment” and profit on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta and LFT have started a collaborative engagement to continue efforts to remove animal cruelty content that violates Meta’s policies as well as explore proactive ways to identify and prevent such content from being posted in the first place, including utilizing AI strategies. Whistle Stop Capital consultancy firm supported the research analytics and investment thesis around the engagement.
Following Meta’s responsiveness and stated desire to rid their platforms of harmful animal-abuse content that violates its policies, LFT has withdrawn the shareholder resolution and is optimistic that meaningful change is on the horizon.
This initiative has the potential to protect countless dogs, cats, primates, and other species commonly abused for videos shared across all major social media platforms, including fake rescues (in which animals are deliberately placed in painful, dangerous, situations to create a staged, dramatic “rescue” story), sadistic torture videos of baby monkeys and cats, and other nefarious content. Our 2025 report identified Facebook as the top platform for animal cruelty content in 2025, and thus this effort is expected to dramatically reduce the prevalence of such content overall.
The ongoing collaboration between LFT and Meta is expected to help build new solutions and approaches, in keeping with Meta’s efforts to continually look for ways to improve the effectiveness of its content moderation. This could include situations where abuse is misrepresented as education or rescue.
LFT is grateful to Meta for their recent actions, and remains committed to working toward a future where animals are no longer harmed for online content.
