Michael Macartney, 50, confessed to the BBC his role in an extreme monkey torture network.

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.

  • MilitantVegan@lemmy.world
    1·
    7 months ago

    They’re only getting 5 years in prison. The article also says Macartney had been in prison previously. Since the US prison systems are designed for sadism and punishment, it probably did more to make the guy amenable to this kind of horror. It’s also known that slaughterhouses frequently get their workers from the prison system, so it’s very possible that this guy will simply have his unapproved abuses exchanged with ones that our society sanctions.

    When he comes out, his mind is most likely to be more disturbed than when he went in.

        • MilitantVegan@lemmy.world
          1·
          7 months ago

          Currently billions of animals are raised in atrocious conditions and slaughtered against their will, for food, every year. This alone should be reason enough to want it to end, but the problems don’t end there. Most of the top causes of death in industrialized nations is the result of lifestyle diseases such heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancers. The main drivers of these diseases is overconsumption of animal products. In other words eating animals is the leading cause of death in humans.

          https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56984912-the-proof-is-in-the-plants

          To make it worse, food deserts in low income areas results in disproportionately higher incidences of these diseases and causes of death for black people, indigenous people, and all persons of color.

          https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w9ixJ3YcmZg&pp=ygUldGhleSdyZSB0cnlpbmcgdG8ga2lsbCB1cyBkb2N1bWVudGFyeQ%3D%3D

          even worse, animal agriculture is one of the worst sources of environmental destruction. It is one of the top causes of climate change, the single largest cause of deforestation, and causes rampant pollution.

          https://www.surgeactivism.org/aveganworld

          And again, it gets even worse. Not only is it strongly arguable that consumption of animals and their products is the cause of the covid pandemic; animal ag is also the leading cause of antibiotic resistant diseases, and if it’s allowed to continue it will only be a matter of when, not if, we end up with an H5N1 pandemic - a flu that has a 50-60% death rate. This should be reason enough for governments to outright declare animal agriculture a threat to national security, and pursue strong policies to transition away from animal consumption as rapidly as possible.

          https://www.surgeactivism.org/notifbutwhenbirdflu

          When something is this bad, aren’t modest proposals the last thing we need?

            • MilitantVegan@lemmy.world
              1·
              7 months ago

              Animals are generally killed significantly younger than their natural lifespans. The short lives they live are entirely in conditions that are comparable to history’s worst concentration camps. You’re literally living on the rotten flesh of traumatized children.

              Have you ever stopped to wonder what they want?

            • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
              01·
              7 months ago

              Their user name is MilitantVegan.

              Do you genuinely think they have ever, in their entire life, been capable of keeping their nose out of other peoples business?

              • Korne127@lemmy.world
                1·
                7 months ago

                I’m not even vegan by myself, but saying other people’s business when it’s not about things people do for themselves without harming anyone but killing animals is… really weird.

        • chetradley@lemmy.world
          0·
          7 months ago

          I’ve yet to see a proposal more convincing to me than just avoiding animal products altogether. Don’t get me wrong, I used to enjoy things like meat, dairy and eggs, but I realized the cost far outweighed my own pleasure.

          • rusticus@lemm.ee
            0·
            7 months ago

            Dairy and eggs don’t kill animals in a cruel way. It’s animal exploitation yes but who amongst us aren’t exploited?

            • Sizzler@slrpnk.net
              1·
              7 months ago

              You never seen an egg laid without a shell because of the stress the chicken is under huh?