[PER LA VERSIONE ITALIANA CLICCA QUI]
Is it a clickbait post? No, it’s not. First of all, because there are no ads on the blog that could possibly bring me money; second of all, because it is the truth. And now I’m going to tell you why.
Yesterday I was reading the comments under one of PETA’s posts on Instagram, when I noticed several people asking to report an Instagram profile, which I checked out later on.
The name of the profile was @predator_freaks, a public account that counted something like 80.000 followers. It featured a series of pictures which showed hunters with their killed preys - or the preys themselves - and questionable captions. The preys were mostly wolves, coyotes, bears, lynxes, mountain lions, species that are endangered.
Before continuing, I’d like to point out that at the time I was writing this article in English, the account in question appeared as ‘not found’, which didn’t necessarily mean that Instagram had shut it down, but simply that it could have changed name, or that it was deactivated temporarily, following the huge number of reports and verbal abuse received.
However, as I’m writing now, I received a notification saying that Instagram reviewed the report and they shut down the profile.
Despite this, I’d like to continue with what I have to say, as I’m not happy with the way Instagram handles these situations, especially considering that before the mentioned account was shut down, it had a considerable amount of followers - 80.000! - which was certainly not reached overnight.
Now, I know that trophy hunting - however revolting - is very popular in the US, as a matter of fact the hunters featured on Predator Freaks were mainly, if not all, Americans. The thing is that the photos didn’t simply show proud hunters with a dead prey, like a pheasant for instance. As much as heartbreaking it is, hunting coyotes is something widespread in the US, as coyotes are seen as potential danger for pets, livestocks and - in general - their overpopulation is a matter of concern. Although I don’t understand the need of creating such an Instagram page, on the other hand I can try to understand that showing a hunter with a dead coyote may be acceptable to Instagram (but not to all of its users).
What I found really shocking was the mood with which many of the pictures were published and received by the users. Smiling women holding tight bleeding wolves; dead wolves dragged on the pavement like bags of trash; wolves hung by the mouth to the barbed wire of random fences; butchered bears; mountain lions without eyes; snout of wolves bleeding on white snow featuring captions such as “X has put this big dog to sleep!”.
Unfortunately, I no longer have access to these photos, but I was extremely disgusted and upset, not only because of the photos themselves, but also because of the other people’s comments.
Like me, thousands of other Instagram users have used the ‘report’ button.
Yes, because Instagram, like all the other social media platforms, has a ‘report’ function that should help to report disturbing, violent, inappropriate content, in order to limit popularity and prevent from spread. This includes photos that promote bullying, racism, homophobic speech, nudity, pornography, pedophilia, self-violence or violence on others. Including animals, right? Because violence is violence, right?
A couple of years ago, it was Instagram itself to release some comments related to fighting animal abuse on the platform, where they stated they would use a new report system.
Here’s an excerpt from the linked article.
[…] starting today, searches for a wide range of wildlife hashtags will trigger a notification informing people of the behind-the-scenes animal abuse that makes some seemingly innocent wildlife photos possible. […]
Oh, really? That’s interesting.
Like many other people that wrote me in private yesterday, I reported many, many times the pictures featured on Predator Freaks’ profile. This was Instagram’s response.
And this very same response came back to me several times, both for pictures showing hunter & prey, and pictures clearly showing a tortured, bleeding wild animal.
So, posting a photo of a wild animal bleeding on the snow and being proud of having killed it with a big smile on the face is the type of content that Instagram finds acceptable, surely not disturbing, but 100% family-friendly and suitable for children, young folks, and sensitive adults.
At this point I checked out the famous Community Guidelines and, if I’m still capable of reading, there’s something that doesn’t compute here.
Very well, so Instagram does admit that there are users posting content that might not be suitable for everyone, such as graphic videos and sadistic pictures. But the moment thousands of users report a public profile and its pictures, pictures that clearly violate the Community Guidelines, they state they reviewed the report and the content doesn’t violate these guidelines.
At this point I have no clue about how Instagram sees the pictures posted by pages like Predator Freaks, perhaps they’d use them for wishing their children goodnight since, based on their system, they are suitable for a wide audience and don’t glorify violence or sadism at all.
Then there’s this other part that draws my attention:
Like I pointed out in the beginning, many of the hunted species featured on predator Freaks are protected as they are endangered. Or at least, I’m quite sure that hunting lynxes is not a permitted activity. And yet, even that content doesn’t violate Instagram’s Community Guidelines.
Additionally, this particular guideline is kind of funny: a couple of months ago I myself was scammed privately on Instagram, by a guy to whom I sent 10 packs of vegan croissants and never got paid. I reported the thing, but he remained unpunished. How can Instagram say that the selling of live animals is not allowed on their platform if everyone can do pretty much anything in private, without fearing consequences?
I’d like to analyse a further aspect. The screenshot of Predator Freaks I managed to take showed that the page was counting around 78.000 follower, but the last time I checked it had beyond 80.000. In a moment like the one we’re living, where all the accounts struggle to get a decent engagement level and grow organically, I’m perplexed and in shock at seeing such a profile having so many followers.
Two possible things happened: a. the published content is so popular and loved that it gathered a huge amount of followers; b. the posts are boosted by using the method Instagram loves the most lately: money. In both cases, I find it alarming. If the first one highlights a worrying morbid enthusiasm towards violence and sadism on animals, the second one shows that in presence of money Instagram could promote pretty much anything, without taking into consideration the level of appreciation/danger of the promoted content towards the reached audience.
Finally, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the concept of violence itself.
Violence is violence, or so it should be. And while YouTube bans users that upload animal crushing videos, whether they’re about goldfish, snails or puppies, Instagram takes action against violence only if it’s directed towards human beings or pets such cats and dogs. I truly believe that if Predator Freaks showed pictures of tortured cats and dogs, the outcome would be very different. But we’re talking about dangerous wolves and bears here, so everything’s fine.
It’s not a matter of being vegans or animal right activists, it’s about being people who are capable of distinguishing between what is violent for no reason, and what is not. If it was only about veganism, then I couldn’t explain all those people who are not vegans and yet say they love animals. If it’s about loving animals, then I don’t see how pages like the one in question can find space and being accepted in our society.
In conclusion, based on the responses I received after my reports, after being told about 10 times that those photos didn’t violate Instagram guidelines, I must deduct that Instagram doesn’t defend animals, doesn’t punish the accounts who commit animal abuse, on the contrary, it helps them grow by using the algorithm and boosted posts.
Predator Freaks may have been shut down, but how many other similar accounts are on the platform? This one had the chance to be shut down only because someone on a PETA’s post mentioned it, but it went totally unnoticed till then, at the point it was able to gain almost 100.000 followers. It took thousands of reports to allow Instagram to shut it down, a single person could have never been successful.
At the end of the day, Instagram remains a platform that doesn’t communicate with its users, there’s no way to contact them and communicate with them, and this - for me - is a huge problem.
In my opinion, by turning its eyes blind when it comes to these issues, Instagram is as much responsible as these accounts that promote animal abuse, because it accepts everything passively and doesn’t take real action against them, ending up being a silent accomplice.
