Target: Dame Melanie Dawes, Chief Executive, Ofcom, United Kingdom
Goal: Enforce swift takedowns, maximum penalties, uploader identification, and repeat offender sanctions against social media platforms that made animal abuse go viral.
Animal cruelty clips have flooded social media platforms, with public submissions topping 80,000 links during 2024. Facebook carried 87.5% of those links, with Meta platforms forming over half of content sampled by researchers. Only 36.3% of flagged material vanished, leaving vast harm visible and shareable.
Subjects included monkeys, cats, dogs, and endangered wildlife. Researchers logged 53 species and nearly 1,000 individual animals on Facebook alone. At least 108 belong within IUCN‑listed categories, including critically endangered great apes. Trends varied by site. Facebook showed deliberate torture in roughly a quarter of links, while Instagram leaned toward staged entertainment.
UK law now treats online animal cruelty as priority illegal content. Platforms must detect, act, and prove risk controls. Failure invites serious fines. Strong, public enforcement can push rapid removals, deter copycats, and stop money flows from views and ads. Sign below to demand maximum lawful pressure, transparent metrics, and penalties where firms fall short.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Dame Melanie Dawes,
Alarming figures show a torrent of online animal cruelty, with Facebook carrying the largest share. Only a minority of flagged items came down. That gap enables repeated harm, audience growth, and copycat behavior. People watched monkeys, cats, dogs, and protected wildlife suffer while systems meant for safety apparently lagged.
We urge Ofcom to use every tool. Require rapid takedown benchmarks, robust proactive detection, and auditable reporting on volumes, speed, re‑uploads, and repeat accounts. Where firms miss duties, please impose maximum fines, binding improvement plans, and escalating sanctions. Persistent violators should face revenue‑impacting measures and criminal referrals where statutes allow.
Please also mandate uploader traceback, cooperation with law enforcement, and preservation of forensic evidence for prosecutions. Survivors need care. Platforms should fund independent rescue and rehabilitation when content monetizes abuse. Strong, visible action will protect animals, reassure the public, and show that cruelty content meets fast removal and real consequences.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo credit: Eren Li
