NEWS AND OPINION – INTERNET SOCIAL MEDIA: TikTok is a very fast growing online social media business having acquired over 1 billion monthly users in 3 years. It is owned by a Chinese business: ByteDance.
It seems to me that its target is young people who want to make short, comedic videos with the help of TikTok which provides the music and other features. It can be entertaining and harmless, even useful. Sadly, as often happens, there is a small minority of participants who abuse the platform and companion animals in a desire to achieve notoriety and millions of hits for their abominable videos.
These animal abuse videos (the perpetrators don’t see it as abusive) are an extension of the videos we have seen in the past on Facebook where for example thugs throw cats large distances into lakes and buildings. But the Tiktok dog and cat video craze is animal abuse dressed up with music and a comedy element making them more sinister and unpleasant. They show a disregard and disrespect for animals. Is this how young people relate to animals? Is this how ignorant they typically are in Western civilisations?
Put it in a bun craze
One craze which amuses many young people is to put an elastic band around the ears of cats to see the reaction. The video shows the reaction. The idiot ‘@nolanbobinger’ says that he laughed for 27 minutes. This video has been seen an astonishing 2 million times indicating that a sizeable body of people have a disrespectful attitude towards companion animals which makes animal abuse easy.
@nolanbobinger When I tell you I laughed for a good 27 minutes @chanadiemachal car is Broken ##foryoupage ##foryou
Note: videos on this site are often made by third parties and held on YouTube servers or the servers of other businesses. Sometimes the videos are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. It that has happened I apologise but I have no control over it.
Slapping cats and dogs
Another craze is to slap cats and dogs in sync to the supplied music which enrages the animals. The humans think it is great fun. A small tap might be fun but this is abuse because it is persistent slapping.
Expletives
These TikTokers like to use rude language. The ‘F’ word is used freely which reinforces my view that these are ignorant, ill-educated fools who need to occupy their minds more productively and usefully. Some videos show users swearing at their companion animals. This is cruel and very bad for the human-animal bond. Many years ago I can remember a man shouting an his cats. That video did well. Same thing. Same bad stuff.
Mild abuse
There is a body of work with shows mild cat abuse. It is objectionable. The cats’ owners see nothing wrong in it. They should not be cat owners. Click on the link below to see one example.
CAT VIDEO ENTERTAINS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE CAT’S WELFARE
PETA calls on the social media platform to ban them – the people and their videos – permanently. It is a troubling development. It seems that online social media has unearthed a dark, distasteful side to the mentality of young people which expresses itself through cruel videos. It puts me off humanity.
‘Kimbo’ another underexercised and obese pet caracal who overeats because he is bored
Social media celebrity biking couple Travis and Sigrid involved in RTA
Volunteer animal shelter worker banned for criticising the shelter on Facebook
Stepan is a celebrity Ukrainian blogging cat and influencer from Kharkiv
Brilliant white, deaf Norwegian Forest Cat loves long cycle rides in London
Surge in pet advert scams online in the UK
Silencing volunteers at animal shelters in the United States
![The title might sound bizarre; as if written by an animal abuser. Quite the contrary. Please read the entire article and please don't skim it or speed read it. I am all for freedom of speech, one of the pillars of human society enshrined in the constitution of many countries. And Elon Musk, who owns Twitter, is strongly for giving Twitter users free-rein to more or less say and show what they like even if it is highly unpleasant as is the case with the Yulin dog meat trade and market in China. I am all for fighting this horrendously cruel human behavior. The cruelty needs to be aired on social media. BUT, there is a limit to this. Twitter knows that I am interested in animal welfare which means that this social media platform automatically serves me videos and images from the dog meat markets of Asia that are simply unpalatable. They are impossible to look at. Constant publication of animal abuse images on Twitter desensitizes the average citizen and pushes away the sensitive animal advocate and is counterproductive. There needs to be a balanced approach in which animal abuse images and videos are shown to educate people but where a warning is given to allow readers to make an informed choice. - MikeB I take an alternative stance on this topic in another article (click to see it if you wish) and it sounds as if I am contradicting myself but I'm not. I am seeking a balance which protects the viewers while airing the important topic of animal welfare which includes on occasions showing images of animal abuse. [caption id="attachment_171262" align="alignnone" width="810"] Twitter animal abuse videos and images can be counterproductive. Image: MikeB[/caption] Desensitizing the average viewing public I have to skip past them by scrolling down the Twitter page as fast as possible. Twitter administrators are not doing their job with sufficient vigor or commitment. Or they think it is okay for the general public to see horrendous animal cruelty. Seeing this stuff can harm the viewer psychologically. The end result is a world in which a dog has been harmed through gross cruelty and a human who's been harmed by viewing the gross animal cruelty. What's the point? The users who tweet cat and dog cruelty in Asia need to be reminded that they can get their message across about the cruelty of the Asian dog and cat meat markets WITHOUT showing pornographic videos and still images that break the heart. The same applies to any animal cruelty. I have seen many tweets by animal rescue organisations showing unpalatable images of injured or diseased cats and dogs. They are too difficult to view. They should not be published on Twitter. Surely there has to be a limit to protect the public, particularly children? These images and videos may inure children to animal cruelty. They may become desensitized to it. This would have a negative impact in the fight for better animal welfare in the future. Words only sometimes Twitter administrators should introduce a rule which makes it mandatory to use words only or acceptable pictures when hammering home the point about dog and cat cruelty in Asia. Words are enough if they are used to maximum effect. Twitter could jazz up the platform to make the presentation of words more interesting. At the moment is all the same format and font. It is dull. Add different fonts, different sizes and different colours. Glorifying abuse I learned this years ago. Users of the internet including website owners can't glorify animal abuse. They can't try and obtain shock value by presenting gruesome animal abuse. In doing so they will probably push away sensitive animal advocates who they need to support the movement against Yulin dog meat festival and markets. Think of a different way to fight the cruelty. To simply post sickening videos which cannot be watched by anyone with a modicum of decency won't work for the vast majority of social media users. It just puts them off and makes them shut the horrors out of their minds. PETA PETA's M.O. is to shock the public with horrible animal abuse videos and images. I understand this. But once again, it can be overdone and it can end up being counter-productive for the reason stated. It can desensitise. Sickening images need to be published with great caution and in a regulated way in order that they may maintain their impact and be an effective tool against animal cruelty and in support of animal welfare.](https://pictures-of-cats.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Twitter-animal-abuse-videos-and-images-2-300x300.png)
Twitter needs to restrict freedom of speech on animal cruelty in Asia
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