Badger Trust calls for inclusion of animal cruelty in Online Safety Bill
- Badger Trust Staff Team
- May 22, 2023
- 4 min read
National badger charity urges the Government to bring violence towards animals into the scope of the Bill as incidents surge.
Badger Trust has sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Rt Hon Chloe Smith MP, urging her to include animal cruelty in the Online Safety Bill.
Badgers are among the most widely featured native animals in horrific online content that shows animal cruelty and abuse. Badger-baiting gangs, in particular, use social media to flaunt the violence they inflict on badgers and dogs. They also use social media to arrange criminal activity in many cases. The content filmed is then exposed to many young people, including children, which is traumatising and could help normalise violence towards animals among vulnerable groups.
Badger Trust is urging the Government to help address this growing problem by bringing violence towards animals into the scope of the Online Safety Bill, currently going through Parliament.
The full letter sent to the Secretary of State is shown below. Badger Trust has also drafted a template letter that anyone can send to their local MP and the Secretary of State to share their concerns.
Peter Hambly, Executive Director of Badger Trust, commented:
“We must do everything we can to stop criminals from sharing animal cruelty online.
“This is encouraging more crime to take place. The Online Safety Bill needs to include abuse of animals so we can help protect animals from this violence and children being exposed to it.”
Badger Trust letter to Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology about the Online Safety Bill
How YOU can act to stop criminals from sharing animal cruelty online
Write to your MP and the Secretary of State now and help get animal cruelty up the agenda and added to the Online Safety Bill.
Writing to your MP is a quick, easy way to campaign for the protection of badgers. Emails and letters written by a passionate constituent – especially those that are personal, original and persuasive – have the power to influence your MP. And the more letters they receive from constituents on a particular issue, the more likely they will pay attention and act on your concerns.
Use our template example if you need guidance on the key points or how to set out your letter.
[ YOUR MP’s NAME ]
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Dear [ YOUR MP’s NAME ]
Re: Online Safety Bill
I am very concerned about the rapid increase of videos and other online content around cruelty to animals. Badger Trust research highlighted that badgers are among the most featured native wild animals in such content – often driven by badger-baiting gangs posting their crimes online. I believe the ability to post animal cruelty and abuse online encourages further crimes, as it gives perpetrators a platform to show their crimes to a wide audience.
This cyber-enabled wildlife crime – crimes against wild animals facilitated by the internet – is rising as online technologies become more widespread. More and more young people are exposed to these illegal and harmful activities in online spaces.
Badgers are also victims of cyber-enabled wildlife crime as organised criminal gangs use the internet to arrange when and where to target specific badger populations. They also share violent videos of badger baiting on social media, which normalises the persecution of the species and puts young people at risk of being recruited into criminal gangs.
Therefore, as your constituent, I urge you to support the inclusion of online animal cruelty content into the scope of the proposed UK Online Safety Bill. Polling by the RSPCA in 2018 indicated that almost a quarter of 10-18-year-olds had witnessed some form of animal abuse online, and this figure is likely to have risen. Such content poses a high risk of psychological harm and distress, especially when viewed by children, young people and vulnerable adults, by exposing them to violence, abuse and the mistreatment of other live beings. This can have a lasting impact on vulnerable minds and set negative examples of how animals should be treated.
Social media providers are failing to effectively prevent such content from appearing on their platforms. The Online Safety Bill promises to “deliver the government’s manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while defending free expression.” The bill aims to tackle harmful content online to protect the public from its negative impacts. However, the UK also has some leading animal welfare laws that would be undermined by allowing the online distribution of violence towards animals.
I urge you to lend your support to the amendment to the bill proposed by Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, which would add offences under section 4 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 (unnecessary suffering) and offences under section 1 of the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996 to the list of priority offences set out in schedule 7.
I look forward to your reply and action on this urgent matter.
Yours sincerely,
[ YOUR NAME ]
[ YOUR FULL ADDRESS AND POSTCODE (so your MP knows you’re a constituent) ]
