A ringleader in a global monkey torture network exposed by the BBC has been charged by US federal prosecutors.

Michael Macartney, 50, who went by the alias “Torture King”, was charged in Virginia with conspiracy to create and distribute animal-crushing videos.

Mr Macartney was one of three key distributors identified by the BBC Eye team during a year-long investigation into sadistic monkey torture groups.

Two women have also been charged in the UK following the investigation.

Warning: This article contains disturbing content

Mr Macartney, a former motorcycle gang member who previously spent time in prison, ran several chat groups for monkey torture enthusiasts from around the world on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

  • Dasus@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Animals literally are food.

    All animals are. And we too, are animals.

    For what, that’s a different question. Literally every living thing gets consumed by other living things as a part of nature. Well, putting aside “artificial” things like being blasted to dust in a furnace, and even then, you can be used to fertilise plants, meaning another living thing is consuming you.

    Just how naive do you have to be to think that nothing should ever die, or if it does, that it should never be consumed by another living thing? That’s illogical and crazy.

    So… you would rather destroy whole environments, entire species, than accept that hunting is necessary? Because it is. It’s necessary for the environment and it saves lives (because overpopulated deer cause more accidents because of constant migration and just the sheer amount of them.)

    You don’t understand what the word “murder” means.

    This sort of absolutism is exactly why veganism has such a poor rep.

    It’s clearly a personal thing for you. This is part of your identity, but not something you’ve actually researched or thought about. It shows from the way you use expressions like “carnist mental gymnastics” while not being able to accept literally unchangeable facts of nature and crying that a deer who lived in the wild was equally tortured as a livestock animal who may have lived their entire lives without being able to even turn around in their cage.

    You’re about as good for animals and equally ironic as PETA.

        • Sizzler@slrpnk.net
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          3 months ago

          Other animals, but they don’t call what they eat “food”. Do you understand or do I need to use pictures to explain to you?

          • magnusrufus@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Actually if you think you are making a valid coherent point please go into further detail. As I see it what they call or don’t call what they eat doesn’t change what it fundamentally is. Shark food is animals. Translate that into shark if you like but the meaning doesn’t change.

            • Sizzler@slrpnk.net
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              3 months ago

              Sharks don’t have the same self-reflective mechanism we do, I mean they recognise we aren’t very good food but other than that they don’t think “should I eat this?”.

              Simply put we do have the capacity for that and should maybe act on it.

              • magnusrufus@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                What does that have to do with what constitutes food? Food is what is eaten for sustenance. Sharks eat animals. No they don’t reflect on the morality of it but that has nothing to do with the reality that sharks eat animals for food. Animals are food. When you talk all carnivores and parasites and such out of feeding on animals then we can say that animals are not food. Us having the capacity and the will to be morally selective about our choice of food doesn’t make animals not food.

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I don’t even believe you read it, tbh.

        Please name a foodstuff that wasn’t originally from a living organism. I’ll wait.