It's rare to travel without a camera and posting pictures on social networks. People often share pictures of animals with others. That’s why Instagram already has a huge base of photographs of wild, endangered animals. Only the number of selfies with animals has increased by almost 300% since 2014. Especially popular are photographs of someone hugging a sloth or pictures with tigers in a cage. But what’s the problem with publishing selfies with lovely animals?
The struggle for animal rights is taking place on Instagram
Two important organizations,
National Geographic and
World Animal Protection investigated the problem of wildlife tourism in the Amazon and they discovered wild animals are hunted in order for tourists to be able to take a picture with them. Animals are often taken out of the wild by force, often when they’re still puppies and are taken from their mothers. They live in captivity in deplorable conditions. Dolphins and elephants are subjected to a painful taming process before they are ready to socialize (read: swimming or riding) with people. For animals, all actions they are not accustomed to from their natural environment are stressful.
According to the results of this research, the creators of Instagram decided to take action. It all started last December and now, when we look for posts about wild animals with the help of some hashtags (example: #tigerselfie), a warning comes up in a pop-up message. The message says: »You are searching for a hashtag that may be associated with posts that encourage harmful behavior to animals or the environment.«
The site also offers us the possibility of further information on the exploitation of animals. With this campaign, they want people to think about the full story of this photo. They want to stop automatic likes and want to inform people about wildlife trade. Hashtags appear in English as well as the languages of the countries where wildlife practices have become endemic (Thailand, Indonesia). The problem is that most tourists are not aware of the negative consequences.
The message that Instagram gives to wildlife traffickers is also very important. They use social networks primarily to connect with each other and then move to a private platform. Therefore, such alerts also appear when searching for information about trading animals, such as: #exoticanimalforsale. The creators of this campaign hope that this will make it more difficult for resellers to go on with their activity. Previously, Instagram had already banned the publication of photographs showing the torture of animals.
The ultimate goal of organizations fighting for animal rights is to wake up all social networks to actively engage in the fight against animal trafficking. This includes the additional training of employees in order to be able to notice posts that include endangered animals. With the power of social networks, they want to improve the world.
