How social media sites are promoting cruelty

SOCIAL media giants have recently made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. (“Facebook apologises for worldwide crash”, October 6). As well as crashing, a whistler-blower has claimed “the company prioritises its own interests over the public good”.

Sadly investigations have revealed extensive, shocking animal cruelty videos on social media sites, many showing sickening scenes of creatures being tortured or killed.

Another popular ploy is to show a panicked prey animal such as a puppy or kitten trying to escape from a predator such as a snake.

At the last minute the prey animal is “rescued” by the person who probably set them up. It has been suggested that filming such scenes could require several takes and long periods of suffering for the animals concerned. Some set-ups may go wrong, risking lives. No one knows if any fatalities occur.

It is reported that there have been five billion views of animal abuse on YouTube, Facebook and TikTok worldwide. Furthermore it is estimated that social media giants are making millions from it.

Researchers estimate revenue of over £8 million for YouTube alone.

Sadly our country’s viewing record of these videos is disappointing as “British sickos are third in a world league for uploading harrowing videos of creatures being tortured or killed”. So much for our country’s reputation of being animal lovers.

Thank goodness for all those people who work to improve the lives of animals and shame on those who support cruelty by viewing these sickening videos.

Elizabeth Allison, Aylestone