The Unspoken Side of Social Media

 

Kate Thompson: The Unspoken Side of Social Media

Social media has been one of the most influential business developments in the last decade. Often times, we see the many benefits of social media: new relationships, increased audiences, better customer service and communication, etc.  We rarely see or discuss the negative sides of social media, specifically for farmers and those in the agriculture industry. 

 

Farmers and agriculture professionals have had a long history of experiencing backlash or negativity with their profession. Specifically, those working in animal agriculture have faced years of hate towards their profession and lifestyle. Animal agriculture is the “practice of breeding animals for the production of animal products and for recreational purposes”. Due to conflicting opinions, many people believe that animal agriculture is cruel and unfair.

 

A few years ago, a video of the Fairlife dairy was released to the public showing many instances of animal abuse and cruelty. This video got millions of views and it struck up conversations between those in the dairy industry and consumers. Many people began believing that this was how dairy farming was like. Animal activist were all over the internet posting about the cruel treatments of dairy cattle. 

 

One blogger, @Farmer Tim, wrote a post about how his innocent tweets and pictures have been reposted by animal activist, but with a twist.  They change captions and add their own information to make this innocent picture of Tim moving his cattle from one pasture to another. This photo was reposted with the caption: “Poor innocent non-human slaves, born into exploitation and when no longer profitable, sent to slaughter.” Tim goes on to explain how these types of posts make him not want to continue posting, but it also creates conversations about his farm and people begin to question the safety and care of his animals. 

 

Tim isn’t the only one feeling like this. Many other farmers and ranchers have been targeted by activists about their animal welfare. In fact, Cal Poly has had their fair share of criticism by local animal activists.

 

While activists have been around for years, the increase in social media has allowed them to reach out to much larger public audiences and information on the internet spreads like wildfire. These targeted farmers and ranchers are experiencing very negative effects of these widespread accusations and false claims. 

 

While social media has its benefits and companies are using it to their advantages, we can’t forget that not everything on the internet is truthful and lots of posts get twisted to hurt specific groups.