You might have seen ‘cute’ videos of infant primates wearing human clothes, getting dressed and being given many challenges while scrolling Instagram.

Those contents might look ‘cute’ and harmless. However, according to the Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition (SMACC), those contents are a form of animal cruelty.

How is it not cruel? Before being sold and filmed as content, these infant primates first have to be separated from their parents. Usually, the parents are killed!

These infant primates might look like they re laughing and smiling while being dressed. But, SMACC said that those ‘smiles’ and ‘laughs’ could actually be their stress responses. Not to mention when the contents are cruel, such as when they’re being forced to eat spicy foods, sprayed with water/hose, or scared with other animals / predators.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Primate Specialist Group Section for Human-Primate Interactions has a guideline on how to share primate photos responsibly. For example, ensuring they are with other primates, and even if there's a human, it is supposed to be professional with appropriate protective personal equipment. This means there are many contents in Instagram that violate this guideline.

Instagram does have a mechanism to report animal cruelty contents. However, we felt this feature is not effective for indirect cruelty, such as the exploitation of infant primates.

Hence, we are asking Instagram to consider infant primates contents as animal cruelty. In addition, we would also like for Instagram to provide an extended "report" feature specifically directed at the removal of infant primate exploitation contents.

By adding those features, we are not only applying the recommendations of SMACC and IUCN, but we are also reducing the number of exploitative contents of infant primates. This could lead to the decrease of cruelty towards infant primates, by stopping the growing trend.

Regards,
Rheza Maulana, S.T., M.Si (Environmental Science Academic, University of Indonesia)
Along with Koalisi Perlindungan Hewan Indonesia