Social media has transformed animal welfare advocacy, enabling rapid mobilization but also spreading misinformation and causing welfare harms through viral content.
Social media is simultaneously one of the most powerful tools for animal welfare advocacy and a source of direct welfare harm. The selfie culture has driven wildlife tourism that causes animal stress. Viral cute animal videos have stimulated demand for species that suffer in captivity. But social media footage has also broken open factory farming conditions to audiences that would otherwise never see them, driving real regulatory change.