Social media has a huge influence on our daily lives, there is no doubt about it but how much does it shape our perception of animals and wildlife and what happens when it harms?
Visit any fox-loving group on Facebook today and you may find yourself faced with a wall of either;
Content created and posted by bots - many groups and pages on social media are bot managed. Some are easier to spot than others.
Plagerised AI content from bots and the public - AI art is a contentious subject as it is, but the use of others photos, just for social media content and likes is not ethical, even for those who promote AI as an artistic tool.
Comments on posts from a host of bot accounts.
Content of bots commodifying their behaviour
Or;
Content of the public over-feeding foxes.
Content of the public feeding daily diets unsuitable for foxes.
Content of the public taming foxes, even litter after litter.
Content of the public commodifying their behaviour.
The latter can be spurred on by the former.
My exasperation over our perception of animals as a result of social media grew exponentially recently, after a post about an "escaped monkey" made the national and then worldwide news. While it is not fox related, it is akin to the "big cat" reports, often touted in the press as "fact", warping peoples perception of reality and miseducating about the nations exotics.
The poster is Melody Bayly, and she stated for clarity and confirmation;
"Hello! Strange question but is anyone looking for a lost monkey!? Seen walking down across the fields from Whiteshill to the main road - can give you more information if needed! My mother in law who also saw it and grew up in India thinks it’s a spectacled langur"
I have spoken to the Melody on Messenger and she has confirmed her sighing and that she is human, phew! She has no more to report than her original post and has been taken aback by the response, I can understand and it is slightly unfair on her and her neighbour for the media to use their posts in the manner they did. It created a vast response for a mere comment that makes no certainties!
The neighbour also made a post about the event and stated;
"NOT A JOKE: please share
Spotted just before lunch this morning running north away from Stroud heading for Painswick across the field below Callowell parallel to the A46. Description was possibly of a Spectacled langur (Dusky Leaf monkey). If true, the poor thing will be feeling the cold."
The neighbour is relaying a different version of the orginal account. It seems there is only one direct witness report, from Melody and her mother-in-law. This not evidence of an escaped primate at this point, they were just seeking advice and it all blew up. The langur is a DWA species in the UK. As I beleive, there is only one listed DWA keeper for that area and they don't keep primates. As a DWA species, the zoological collection housing such a species would be listed for authorities to check and they have a legal duty to report any escapes to them.
While the scenario has turned out to be a single report, repeated second-hand from a neighbour, the identification of the animal is still unknown. The post accidentally went viral, resulting in it making the news, with the witnesses' spooked because of the amount of attention it has garnered. Until there was some confirmation from the witnesses however, it wasn't the only possibility.
Until the point the report was confirmed, there was also the possibility the post was manufactured by Animal Rights campaigners or that those invloved were bot accounts with the content shared in local groups to drum up views, likes or political support - say, for anti-primate campaigns. Most bot accounts will appear like real people and they can be used to complete all sorts of tasks. They can manage pages or groups, have complex conversations and can even be used to produce their own images, content and products.
This is the story of a single report on social media that made no confirmation and was seeking advice, which has not been confirmed by any experts in the field. There is currently no further information or evidence.
So why did it make the national news?
And had it have been a bot post, could it have still made the news?
A mis-identification is totally understandable and happens often in the UK with unusual looking animals, but just the possibility of a bot post becoming news seems serious, especially as such things have so much weight on our perception of reality. The scary fact is, is that it is more than possible in todays world. Even if it might not have been the case here, this case made me realise how easy it would be!
There are more bot accounts on such sites than real people and those bots lie. Social media has a huge amount of control over our perceptions and actions towards animals and nature and it has a huge influence on the actual media. Not all of it is legitimate and a lot of it is toxic.
How do we defend animals and nature aginst that?
How do you educate against sensationalising human-animal events?