Rescuing animals may be a heartwarming story to some people, but behind these videos, some propaganda lies. Apparently, the video viewing and sharing platform, YouTube has imposed a ban on staged animal rescue videos and described them as a "disturbing trend" in the community.
The growing popularity of scripted videos has already reached a lot of people, where some believe that what they are seeing on YouTube is all real.
YouTube Bans Fake Animal Rescue Videos
In an interview with The Times on Thursday, Mar. 25, the popular social media company said that numerous videos of rescuing animals were a "disturbing trend" created by desperate filmmakers. These videos were considered scripted especially in the case of putting an animal in danger to gain more profit and views from some users.
Business Insider also reported that only the filmmakers benefited in this regard while they enjoyed fooling the public that what they see are the harsh realities that happened to the animals.
Read Also : PewDiePie's Diss Track About Cocomelon Removed? YouTube Deletes Content After Violating Guidelines
The Exceptions of Eating Alive Animals
According to YouTube's global head of trust and safety, Colin Goulding, the company will also focus on banning eating alive animals in the videos. However, those live invertebrates will be allowed to be posted, but not the case of eating a live vertebrate.
In her spoken statement with The Times, Goulding said that the case of Koreans eating a live octopus is allowed by YouTube since it is a part of their tradition. However, in the case of eating a live mouse, the platform will not permit such an instance.
YouTube in Spotting Fake Videos of Animal Rescues
While it is now clear that YouTube will ban the staged animal rescue videos, it is not yet clarified how it will filter the real animal rescues from the faked streams. This could lead to the platform to investigate even deeper through considering the footage which will be used as evidence for animal abuse.
Gaining views in YouTube translates to gaining profits, that is why content creators enjoy producing top-quality videos which the public will appreciate. Considering the nature of the videos involving the animals, the channels will surely collect a lot of revenues from milking their viewers.
YouTube could have done this much earlier since some channels only change their names after being taken down. However, this is not enough to stop them in the process, as the filming of faked animal videos will persist.
As a viewer, you can contribute to saving these innocent animals from being exploited by reporting any suspicious post. You can also avoid watching them.
In the future, other platforms like Facebook and Twitter could acquire similar action. Since animal races continue to dwindle, the real organizations who want to preserve them should also help in putting an end to the fake and undedicated content creators.
Related Article: YouTube AI Misinterprets Chess Chat Involving 'Black' And 'White' Pieces, Flags for Racism
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Joen Coronel
