The Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition (SMACC), on Friday, called on all social media companies to remove existing animal abuse content, urging all platforms to strengthen their policy regulations against repeated offenders and organised abuse networks.
The protectionist group revealed that Facebook and Instagram are platforms with the most reported cases of animal cruelty content in 2024.
The findings coincide with ‘Report It! Week’, a global campaign against cruel treatment of animals, held between May 24th and 31st.
The group, a network of thirty-four animal protection organisations, including the World Animal Protection, revealed that Facebook as a social media platform accounted for 87.5% of animal cruelty content reported by the public in 2024.
It stated that 71,000 out of a total of 80,972 reported links submitted by online users were connected to Meta-owned platforms, raising concerns about the company’s ineffective policy on content moderation.
SMACC data findings stated that monkeys were the most hated animals on Facebook, appearing in 33.4% of the reported links, while 33.8% of reported content on Instagram involved wild animals kept as pets.
A separate inquiry and data disclosed that 1,094 links from Facebook and 39 from Instagram, out of a total of 2,050 collected links, confirmed that more than 50% of the contents originated from Meta platforms. Only 36.3% of the 1,133 Meta links when summed have been removed.
“On Facebook, 24.5% of content is categorized as ‘deliberate physical torture’, while Instagram more frequently hosts content portraying ‘animals as entertainers’ (35.9%). From a species perspective, we identified 53 types of animals, with a total of 962 individuals on Facebook and 40 on Instagram. At least 108 of these individuals belong to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed species, including: orangutans and gorillas (Critically Endangered), long-tailed macaques, chimpanzees, and lion-tailed macaques (Endangered), cheetahs, lions, and stump-tailed macaques (vulnerable),” the findings stated.
It added, “A further 33 animal types are listed as ‘species-dependant,’ suggesting a potentially higher total of IUCN-affected animals. Most commonly, primates (especially macaques), dogs, and cats are featured in this cruel content.”
The CEO of World Animal Protection, Tricia Croasdell, decried the weak regulatory enforcement of policies against displayed cruelty or abuse by social media companies, calling for immediate correction.
He said, “It’s important that social media companies take this seriously and look at improving content moderation systems and enforcement policies. Policies should explicitly define and prohibit all forms of animal cruelty and ensure stronger enforcement, especially against repeat offenders and organized abuse networks.”
He added, “Animals deserve better. We must keep reporting this content to the social media platforms. We do not ignore cruelty or abuse.”
SMACC findings are in tune with UK’s Online Safety Act (2023) which classified animal cruelty as priority illegal content, deserving of prompt takedown or fines worth £18 million.
The European Union’s Digital Services Act and Taiwan’s Animal Protection Act also mandates cruelty content removal, obligating social media platforms to cooperate with law enforcement.
