A woman has been investigated following action by the Taiwan SPCA, who was alerted earlier this year by Lady Freethinker and Action for Primates about a suspect allegedly uploading videos showing the abuse and killing of macaques to private Facebook groups. The content was extremely gruesome and violent, including acts such as setting fire to the animals, cutting off their lips, and beating them with weapons. The cruelty of the actions was shocking. After receiving the report, the Taiwan SPCA immediately filed a complaint with the Taipei City Criminal Investigation Division, providing relevant evidence and requesting police intervention to investigate.
In less than two months, the police located the perpetrator and discovered during the investigation that she had uploaded a total of 26 videos of animal abuse for others to view. Her actions were in violation of Articles 25 and 27-1 of the Animal Protection Act, and the case was subsequently referred to the prosecutor’s office. Although the perpetrator admitted to the crime and confessed that she had reshared animal abuse videos found on platforms Telegram and Bilibili, she was granted a deferred prosecution of one year and fined NT$30,000 due to her cooperative attitude and lack of prior criminal record.
Taiwan SPCA’s Executive Director Connie Chiang states: “We are grateful to the authorities for their proactive handling of this case. Although these videos were not filmed in Taiwan, deliberately sharing them for others to watch encourages similar criminal behavior and should not be taken lightly. We are deeply concerned about the welfare of the animals in the videos, but if the abuse occurred abroad, our current option is to continue seeking help from organizations in other countries. One major challenge in online cases is that some social media companies do not cooperate with police investigations. If these platforms do not provide user IP addresses or basic information, it becomes extremely difficult to trace those involved.”
International animal protection groups also issued statements regarding this case: “Action for Primates and Lady Freethinker, who alerted (Taiwan SPCA) to the activities of the Taiwanese woman, welcome the action taken by the authorities in Taiwan against this individual for posting graphic and obscene monkey torture videos on Facebook. People involved in distributing such horrific online content depicting the cruel and sadistic abuse and killing of baby monkeys must be held accountable, and it is untenable that Meta should tolerate the existence of such individuals and groups on its platform. We hope that the involvement of law enforcement will be a deterrent to others involved in or thinking of posting similar obscene content on social media platforms. We also appeal to Meta and other social media companies to take immediate action to stop the distribution of animal torture content from being posted on their platforms.”
How Social Media Platforms Foster Animal Abuse
The Taiwan SPCA, along with 27 global animal protection organizations, formed the Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition (SMACC), which previously published multiple reports revealing that animals have become victims in the pursuit of engagement and ad revenue on social media. Many online content creators illegally capture and abuse wild animals (including endangered species) to gain attention and popularity. As the view count of a video increases, the popularity of that video or channel on the platform also rises. Popular content is then further exposed on users’ pages due to platform algorithms, which leads to even more views. The most popular content is likely to become a target for advertising, allowing it to reach even more social media users, creating a vicious cycle.
Investigations by international animal protection organizations, such as Lady Freethinker and Action for Primates, have revealed that people in the U.S. and Europe on social media platforms such as Telegram will even pay individuals in Indonesia and dictate how macaques (including baby monkeys) should be tortured, abused, and killed. Many of the videos produced depicting this brutality have since been distributed on mainstream social media platforms such as Facebook. This shows that social media platforms have become a significant medium for international criminal activity to occur.
The investigation by Lady Freethinker and Action for Primates spurred the BBC to conduct its own yearlong investigation uncovering that some of these monkey torture groups have hundreds of members. The seriousness of these abuses uncovered by the animal groups and BBC prompted law enforcement in the U.S. and UK to launch an investigation, which led to successful prosecutions of several individuals involved, with one person sentenced this week to 4 years and 6 months in prison. The Indonesian police have also taken action against several perpetrators living in West Java, Indonesia and, as a result, two people involved in the torturing and killing of baby monkeys were jailed and a third arrest has taken place.
Social Media Companies Should be Legally Obligated to Proactively Remove Harmful Content and Cooperate With Law Enforcement
Animal abuse is a global issue, and regardless of where the videos are filmed or uploaded, the public nature of social media allows this content to be viewed and shared by anyone. Social media companies provide a platform for the widespread dissemination of cruel acts of animal abuse, leading animal protection organizations to believe that these companies have a significant responsibility to stop this.
These companies have the ability to implement internal policies and enhance both manual and automated review mechanisms to restrict content related to animal abuse. Currently, while each platform usually has some policies and user guidelines, instances of animal abuse are often not adequately addressed. Even when such content clearly violates platform regulations or has been reported by the public, many platforms fail to remove the content.
SMACC has been actively in communication with several social media companies, urgently requesting these platforms to remove related videos and has offered to assist them in improving their policies. However, some companies do not take the issue as seriously as they should, leading to very slow progress. These platforms continue to rely on users to report violations, but often do not take down the videos even after receiving reports. After unsuccessful communication with these companies, animal protection organizations are advocating for legal measures to require platforms to proactively remove animal abuse content rather than passively relying on reports. At the same time, internet service providers should be mandated to cooperate with law enforcement when necessary, providing relevant information about users who upload illegal videos, which is essential for effectively prosecuting offenders.
Taking the UK Online Safety Act as an example, the bill passed in October 2023 with an aim to protect children and vulnerable groups from “illegal” or “harmful” online content, including animal abuse. This legislation places greater responsibilities and obligations on social media companies, requiring them to actively review and restrict such content on their platforms.
