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.

There are more bot accounts on such sites than real people and those bots lie, promote toxic behaviour and encourage people to do an post more for their activity. 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 against that?

How do you educate against sensationalising human-animal events?