Facebook often comes under scrutiny for the content it allows to remain posted on its platform. Whether it’s hate speech or misinformation, the company usually has an excuse for why offensive content doesn’t violate its rules. However, it’s harder to see the case for why many videos depicting animal abuse have been allowed to remain up.

According to animal welfare advocates and concerned users, many videos exist on Facebook depicting infant monkeys subjected to frightening, painful or torturous situations. And when this content is reported, Facebook simply says that it doesn’t violate its rules — despite the fact that the company explicitly bans content depicting animal mistreatment.

“Facebook and other social media platforms have a responsibility to do the right thing. The need to do better,” animal welfare advocate Ben Pearson said.

“There’s many of us who continually report all these videos to Facebook — as that’s the platform where these seem to be breeding — (TikTok is much stricter) and they always come back as ‘not against community standards,’” one concerned user wrote. “It’s a joke. We’ve tried all the options: something else/animal abuse, threat of violence/animal abuse, graphic violence/animal abuse etc.”

It’s unclear how this sickening content is allowed to flourish on Facebook, but it’s apparent that, at the very least, the company needs to adjust its definition of animal abuse.

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