Facebook, Twitter, Youtube – all well-established and well-populated social media sites are used by millions of subscribers each day to communicate with friends, family, colleagues and strangers about personal stories, status updates, photos and so much more. To most, these sites are benign and seemingly harmless. Facebook boasts one billion users as of this year. That’s a remarkable feat considering that is 1/7 of the world’s population.
Social sites- for better or worse, like or hate them – are here to stay.
I admit I mainly use Facebook (FB) to promote awareness of animal issues. Have I shared a few personal stories of my own on FB? Yes. Many of my FB “friends” share similar stories plus many submit their opinions on an array of themes including politics, vacations, what they’re eating, creating awareness of other topics, promoting causes or just plain talking about what happened throughout their day. Each day, 300 million photos are uploaded to FB. The endless subject matter runs rampant at any given moment throughout the day and night, 24/7 on FB.
I am friends with many animal advocates and animal causes, organizations, etc. My main focus remains steadfast on creating awareness of the welfare of animals. At this very moment, I could click on my FB page and see hundreds of photos being circulated of animals needing homes, money for care, transporting needs from one rescue to another and so on. Social media sites have a place in society where they can provide valuable information and provide time-sensitive and important messages from around the globe to help others. It is mass communication delivered to your PC and phone at a moment’s notice.
While FB has its positive side, there is a dark, seedy side to this social media site. As I receive hundreds of photos each day of abused animals, I don’t always know if the stories are real. People crosspost countless pictures of homeless animals needing transporting. While I do know some of these transportation needs are legitimiate, some have been proven to be fictitious.
Anyone can create a page claiming to operate an animal rescue. Question is, is the information factual ? The person could be a hoarder posing as a rescuer. In the book, “Little Boy Blue” by Kim Kavin, a dog was saved from a gas-chamber shelter in North Carolina. He was advertised as healthy and happy. Blue only had 72 hours to live before being saved. He was fostered by a woman, Annie Turner, who regularly rescues animals and currently serves as president of Canine Volunteer Rescue in Person County, NC.
During the process of writing her book, Kim went on a discovery trip to learn about Blue’s life before she adopted him. What she saw at Annie’s place was nothing short of a hoarder’s living quarters. As Annie drove Kim around on a golf cart on the property, dogs came up to them and Annie didn’t acknowledge them. The interior of the home where she kept dozens of dogs was nothing short of a mess. Some animals were crated most of the time. Some were kept in a room where the windows were blackened. It appeared the intention of this was for no one to see what was going on inside the house. Other animals were allowed to run loose. This was where Blue “allegedly” lived a good life before finding his forever home with Kim.
What is so disturbing about FB to me is the number of photos and videos of animals being abused, tortured and killed. There are many pages on this social media site that clearly support animal cruelty. Page after page of disgusting people posing with a dead animal that was killed by their very own hands. Showing step by step pictures of a dead cat being placed in the center of a pentagram while mutilated is only one of many gruseome photos shown on one page.
Videos are also posted of animals being tortured while the abusers stand there so proudly sticking their middle fingers in the air while holding their lifeless victims in their evil, wretched hands. These videos and others are also posted on Youtube as well. One well-known video shows a disguised male placing a kitten in a cage and lighting it on fire. He was eventually discovered and was found to be a teenager who basically received a slap on the wrist for his abhorrent act of cruelty.
There are FB pages dedicated to dogfighting. Most pages oppose this despicable act of animal cruelty but you can find others who undeniably reinforce that dogfighting is alive and thriving.
Animal cruelty pages aren’t the only atrocious and unacceptable pages on FB. Pages devoted to pedophilia, necrophilia, pornography, racism, violence, beheadings, suicides, etc can also be found.
Page after page of such odious text on FB. How can that be? Who is regulating and monitoring FB? How do we stop this dark, seedy side of social media?
First, guidelines must exist. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of FB, has a one-page outline of rules that moderators use when checking on content. The young, mostly well-educated people who moderate live in Asia, Africa, Central America, Philippines, Turkey, Mexico and India.
According to the guidelines, animal abuse videos can stay only if it’s clear the user doesn’t approve of it. No content showing poster’s delight in/involvement in/promoting of/encouraging of violence against humans or animals for sadistic purposes (e.g. torture, staged animal fights, animal starvation, obvious neglect, etc.). No depicting the mutilation of people or animals, or decapitated, dismemebered, charred, or burning humans. Deep flesh wounds are ok to show; excessive blood is ok to show. (huh?) Crushed heads, limbs, etc are ok as long as no insides are showing.
FB has 800-1000 moderators. Clearly, they can’t adequately keep pace with the demand of checking out every flagged photo, page, status, comments etc. when you have 1 billion users. FB has removed animal cruelty pages only for others to be re-created using a slightly different name.
This is a serious issue along with the other objectionable topics listed above. FB users need to be vigilant and report any pages that depict cruelty of any kind. It doesn’t appear the current method of moderating FB to stop these exceedingly brutal pages is working effectively.
What is the answer? Giving these idiots a platform to showcase their savagery of animals must stop on FB and any other social media site. What if Mr. Zuckerberg formed a team of people who looked at every new group page and decided if that page can be posted based on certain criteria?
Do you think there is a realistic way of handling this current and very real threat to the glorification of animal cruelty?