• wafflez@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        smirk@sh.itjustworks @smirk:sh.itjustworks however you use mentions

        "just case the textbook anti-PETA rhetoric comes into the thread…

        This is why people hate PETA.

        Yes, PETA does some crazy shit, but as with many things there are two sides to the story which is difficult to see when you get bombarded by anti-PETA stuff as is common on e.g. Reddit.

        Anti-PETA efforts by the meat industry:

        Sites like www.petakillsanimals.com are run by the Center for Organizational Research and Education, which is a lobbying platform for the fast food, meat, alcohol and tobacco industries. They also target the humane society, even John Oliver did a piece on them and their founder Richard Berman. That’s just one outlet for their misinformation-campains, they are also cited in lots of blogs and “news articles” as well, so it’s not always very obvious.

        nathan-winograd-in-perspective
        
        nathan-winograd-misinformation-machine
        

        They are the driving power behind all the misinformation and PETA-hate that is spread around. PETA is actually doing a lot for animal rights, that’s why they are such a big target for smear campaigns:

        [Their biggest victories] (https://www.peta.org/about-peta/milestones/)
        
        [All victories sorted by recent] (https://www.peta.org/about-peta/victories/) (several per week!)
        
        See also http://www.petakillsanimalsscam.com/
        

        PETA and their kill-shelters:

        PETA kills animals because unfortunately there are no better places for them. Blame the puppy mills and irresponsible short term owners that give up their pets a few days or weeks after getting them because they had no idea what they got themselves into. Those people create more pets than there are places for them, so instead of having them become strays and further add to the problem, PETA put down those they can’t adopt out. Because PETA accepts all animals, even those that other shelters turn away in order to not sully their adoption numbers, PETA shelters end up with many more “hopeless” animals. See more here.

        The case of the mistaken dog (and how PETA doesn’t steal and murder pets):

        A farmer asked PETA to euthanise a pack of stray dogs that were aggressive and violent towards the farmer’s cows. Upon arrival, PETA found the pack of stray dogs, took them to the shelter and put them down, as a free service. Unfortunately it turned out, that one of the presumed stray dogs was a pet-chihuaha called Maya, that was not sitting on the porch, as often claimed, but running freely with the stray pack, without leash or collar or supervision. PETA fucked up, because they didn’t wait the 5 day grace period to give the owners time to look for and collect their pet. That’s why they had to pay a fine and apologized for it. http://www.whypetaeuthanizes.com/maya.html

        The monkey selfie:

        The monkey took the picture himself btw, the photographer just left the camera lying around. I am not saying the monkey should be copyright holder and it’s an open-shut case, but it does raise the question about the photographer having ownership over something that was voluntarily and independently created by an animal. What if a painter would leave his brushes lying around and an animal would create a painting? The artist actually sees it the same way and settled for a compromise with PETA followed by a joint statement. This was a landmark case in copyright law.

        PETA equating milk to racism:

        White supremacists actually use milk to demonstrate their superiority over “inferior” (their words, obviously) lactose intolerant ethnicities. That’s the reason behind their campaign on the issue.

        Final thoughts (I promise):

        PETA does a good job at raising issues and are one of the most successfull organisations to fight for animal rights. The granting of rights is the only real way to protect animals from unneccessary cruelty. Animal welfare will always be arbitrary, both in what species are worthy of protection, and the extent of protection they are worthy of. You cannot consider yourself an animal lover without recognizing the importance of that.

        Sometimes PETA (intentionally?) overshoot, that happens when you try to move the border of current perceptions (i.e. animals are objects to be used for food, clothes, entertainment). I am not here to defend their tone or (lack of) tact, and there are a number of (sometimes downright stupid) PETA-campaigns I disagree with. I’m not trying to convice you to become their friend, but at least judge them for what they are doing, not for what they are said to do.

        Most of the criticism of PETA you read on Reddit comes straight from the mouths of the Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE), formerly known as the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF). It’s basically a corporate propaganda organization with donors like Tyson Foods, Wendy’s, and Coca-Cola. They also run campaigns claiming obesity isn’t that major of a problem and that you can eat 10 times as much mercury from fish as experts recommend. The vast majority of the animals PETA euthanizes are suffering and are brought to PETA’s shelter by their owners specifically to be put out of their misery, but the CCF distorts that into “PETA is stealing people’s pets off the streets” and Reddit gobbles it up.

        The media also knows that PETA is an easy target. Years ago I read an article in one of the British tabloids (the Sun or the Mirror) with a headline something like, “PETA blasts child’s bunny wedding!” But if you actually read the article, what happened is a kid dressed up some bunnies in wedding outfits, the “journalist” reached out to PETA and asked them to comment, and PETA said something like, “we don’t support dressing rabbits in costumes because it may be stressful for them.” And that was the end of the story, but that wouldn’t get clicks so they distorted the headline to make it sound like PETA was protesting or attacking the kid on their own accord.

        For the record, I think there are perfectly legitimate criticisms of PETA, like the sexist imagery they use in some of their ad campaigns and their welfarist (as opposed to abolitionist) approach to advocacy. It just gets to me that so many redditors claim to be rational and free-thinking but then read literal corporate propaganda about PETA and swallow it whole without a second thought.

        Info continued here if anyone is interested… https://sh.itjust.works/comment/2252698

        Then… https://sh.itjust.works/comment/2252784

        Then… https://sh.itjust.works/comment/2252805"

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          1 year ago

          I don’t do gish gallops, so I’m just going to address this:

          PETA kills animals because unfortunately there are no better places for them.

          That is bullshit. There are no kill shelters all over the country. There’s one in my town. They didn’t even euthanize after they were overwhelmed when we had a huge storm that destroyed structures. They just found people who would foster while they could rehome as much as they could. PETA doesn’t do that.

          • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Today I learned what a Gish Gallop is.

            British journalist Mehdi Hasan suggests using these three steps to beat the Gish gallop:

            1. Because there are too many falsehoods to address, it is wise to choose one as an example. Choose the weakest, dumbest, most ludicrous argument that your opponent has presented and tear this argument to shreds (also known as the weak point rebuttal).
            2. Do not budge from the issue. Don’t move on until you have decisively destroyed the nonsense and clearly made your point.
            3. Call it out: name the strategy. “This is a strategy called the ‘Gish Gallop’. Do not be fooled by the flood of nonsense you have just heard.”

            Nicely done.

        • 1simpletailer@startrek.website
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          1 year ago

          Its also just totally a false equivalency. Lets entertain for a moment the fact that Peta is an imperfect organization that doesn’t always do the right thing. Okay and? The industry they protest exploits not just animals, but Children and Workers. Its carbon footprint is playing an instrumental role in destroying the biosphere. But sure, PETA is imperfect so I guess we’ll all just keep eating meat.

          • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I’d just stop now. I just realized who you’re commenting with, and the guy just had a long-ass pissy argument. When I slowed down to show him evidence, he kept changing topics and then ragequit when it didn’t work.

            Feel free to check my comment history (or his) for proof of this.

            • u/unhappy_grapefruit_2@lemmy.worldOP
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              1 year ago

              Can also check my comment history I’m just going to try and ignore dx1 although I don’t know how effective that’s going be considering he’s on every god dam comment winging and moaning

              • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                Well, damn. I got to you too late. Or vice versa.

                My wife brought home popeyes since my last comment to you. It’s better than KFC 🐔 😁

                  • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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                    1 year ago

                    Their spicy chicken is to die for, and like 90% less greasy than KFC. And I haven’t done the math, but I think they’re cheaper, too.

                    We fry our own chicken sometimes, and are pretty damn good cooks. And we prefer Popeyes. Which says something.

          • dx1@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yes, start with the Wikipedia one, that actually begins to examine it critically and points out that this campaign against PETA was spearheaded by an animal industry lobbying group…

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          1 year ago

          I love it when people say this without even suggesting where to do this research. Let me guess- Google it. Because that’s what I already did.

          • dx1@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There’s the approach I have to fact-check things, I don’t know what other approach people have honestly. Look up fact-checking, debunking etc. on it. I know there are dozens to hundreds of pages that fact-check the parroted “PETA euthanizes too many dogs” claim. I honestly can’t believe people are still bringing this one up, I don’t know how it could possibly be on me to start digging up sources for you.

            • ZaroniPepperoni@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              “Just look it up until a fringe source from an unknown media group ““debunks”” it, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary, then change your entire point of view from it” in other words: just google the opposite of what you said and go with that answer plz thx. Color me convinced! For the record: every fact check I looked up corroborated the obvious: PETA euthanizes pets at an obscene rate compared to even the most ruthless pounds in the us.

              • dx1@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                No, look up individual claims, look up the inverse of the claim, weigh the presented evidence against each other.

                I.e., look up the mitigating factors here - was this an isolated case? Was it isolated to one state? Were animals from no-kill shelters dumped on the PETA-run shelter? What’s the actual funding of this shelter compared to PETA’s general operations? You know, ACTUAL THOROUGH ANALYSIS. Take the actual facts in question and put them properly in context instead of just swallowing literal animal ag industry propaganda coming out of groups like the Weston Price Foundation that have a vested interest in discrediting groups like PETA.

                It’s like every time people post something false, and you know it’s false, you can’t just let them know, they expect you to spend the next two hours of your life pulling up all the sources to show them, again and again and again and again and again and again. I’ve had this exact same conversation dozens of times, I’m sick of it. Can you not just learn how to research for yourself? Can you not post the discredited claim in the first place so we don’t have to constantly play this game? Like, do the fact checking properly in the first place?

                • Sybil@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  It’s like every time people post something false, and you know it’s false, you can’t just let them know, they expect you to spend the next two hours of your life pulling up all the sources to show them, again and again and again and again and again and again. I’ve had this exact same conversation dozens of times, I’m sick of it.

                  seems like you know how to avoid this, but you choose instead to get mad at people asking you to support your own claims.

      • Sir_Simon_Spamalot@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m a full-time meat eater, but I respect vegans who don’t go around minding people’s businesses, which is exactly what peta does.

        • Emerald@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          All activism could be called “minding people’s business”. That’s not really a fair criticism.

        • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I think that’s the problem. So many people are unaware of the difference between vegans, militant vegans, and peta-assholes. The second and third are the hardest to differentiate (and they are different)

          When you can someone to start ranting about depopulation intervention and driving food species to extinction, then you found the PETA (also the PITA)

        • citrusface@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          not really. peta militancy helps no one. you arent going to make people eat less meat by being assholes and shame people for eating meat. Peta would have better results is they just advocated for people to eat less meat and be more conscious about where there food in general comes from as well as advocating for proper animal care and awareness. They are never going to stop people from eating meat and they seem to refuse to accept that.

          • Firestorm Druid@lemmy.zip
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            1 year ago

            Dude that’s like saying that any form of activism that calls you out on shitty behaviour is in vain and shouldn’t be practised. Not a good take

            • citrusface@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              That’s not what I’m saying at all.

              I am saying in PETAs case, they would catch more flys with honey, rather than vinegar. I don’t believe that making fun of people and making them feel bad about a system that isn’t transparent is the way to go. Compassion and education in this case, would work best. imo. Small incremental steps - not wholesale instant change.

              Leave the dirty work to the ALF. Which I also support. :)