A groundbreaking report has exposed the growing threat of “fake animal rescue” content on social media platforms.
Titled Spot the Scam: Unmasking Fake Animal Rescues, the report comes from a collaborative network of 29 animal protection organisations which want to expose the role of social media companies in promoting bogus content.
Fake rescue content depicts animals in perilous situations – abandoned, trapped, or attacked – only for the so-called rescuer to stage a dramatic intervention for views and donations.
Often, these animals are intentionally harmed or placed in dangerous circumstances, making the rescuers complicit in their suffering.
Commenting on the report, International Animal Rescue’s president, Alan Knight, said: “The setting up of fake rescues is a particularly vile and sickening way to exploit and abuse animals for money – and even more so because it plays on the compassion and kindness of an unwitting audience eager to see suffering animals saved from harm.
“It’s easy to be misled into thinking a scene of an animal needing help is genuine, and that is why it’s essential that social media platforms do much, much more to identify and remove this type of content.”
Report findings
The Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition (SMACC), made up of 29 animal protection organizations, conducted research into the online trend of fake rescue content. It found:
- 1022 links showing fake rescue content were collected over six weeks from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter/X.
- The links located by SMACC had been watched 572,013,959 times.
- Almost 52 per cent of links were found on Meta owned platforms, Facebook and Instagram, with YouTube and TikTok each featuring around a quarter of total content.
- 21 per cent of fake rescue creators asked viewers for donations under the guise of helping animals, usually by Paypal links.
- From the 605 links that SMACC gathered, almost 22 per cent of the content was suggested to our researchers by the platform’s algorithm.
Kittens, puppies and young monkeys are predominantly used, presumably due to the availability of these animals and the ease of handling them.
Cats were the most featured animal, in 42 per cent of videos, followed by primates, dogs, snakes and turtle species.
The content appears to be a genuine rescue of an animal in need, with many creators mimicking the design and content of real animal rescue organizations.
SMACC is concerned that the public are being tricked into donating to these fake accounts, and genuine rescue organizations are missing out.
A SMACC spokesperson stated: “The work of genuine animal rescuers and organizations must be protected from fraudsters online. Every donation given to a fake rescue content creator, is one less going to real organizations helping animals in need.”
“Abandoned animals”
Over a third of the content showed animals apparently “abandoned”, often by the side of the road, in rubbish dumps and bins.
In one disturbing trend, multiple videos show mother cats laying on the ground, wide-eyed and unable to move their bodies, as their kittens cry out and try to feed.
The content then shows the cats being “rescued” and brought back to full health. Veterinarians who have reviewed this content suspect that the cats may in fact be intentionally drugged for the videos. One such video had over 136,000 views.
To aid social media platforms and the public, SMACC identified key indicators that can be used to determine what is real and fake.
A SMACC spokesperson stated: “In the past, Fake Rescue content was easier to identify, because it was generally poorly made, and contained little narrative so appeared disingenuous.
“Fake Rescue content is evolving, and creators are increasingly mimicking genuine animal rescue accounts. Social media platforms need to consult with experts and vets, to make sure their policies are effective and implementable by their moderation teams. They require refinement and maintenance by platforms as content creators come up with new ideas for Fake Rescue content.”