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.
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.
I have a Samsung device, so it's likely from Vietnam. Other than that I, like most Linux users, live on a steady computer diet of used Thinkpads.
Now that Fairphone is available in the US I will likely go for those in the future. Or maybe a Linux phone if one gets good enough. Is there evidence of unethical work practices in Samsung's supply chain?
Samsung literally builds tanks and howitzers. What the hell are you talking about? Unless they make a conscious effort about it, you are safer to assume that a company encourages unethical work practices, from mining the raw materials to selling the phone to customers.
There's also the fact that Samsung is effectively a large chunk of the SK government. Just like how the Yakuza used to have a lot of power over elections in Japan, the government in South Korea has been effectively captured entirely by corporations in the country. Nothing happens without their say-so.
Thank you for informing me about these things. Normally when I buy a phone I base my decision mainly on which ones are supported by degoogled variants of Android. In the future I will stick more to used devices, and less harmful brands like Fairphone.
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.
yeah all the data is out there for why its better for you, the planet, and the animals that live on it, and i find it strange to not find veganism "modest" enough. going vegan was the easiest major lifestyle change i've ever made, and beans are cheaper than meat.
the only time i have problems being vegan is when someone else makes it a problem, and for some reason people really like to respond to any mention of veganism with hostility. but also those same people love animals and hate animal abuse.
I've noticed that too lol. People generally don't like to have their beliefs challenged, especially if it's about something they enjoy doing. Hell I know I struggled with it when considering giving up animal products and dairy specifically, but I'm so glad I did!
the part i struggled with most is realizing that everyone i know just doesn't care about animals enough to stop eating their favorite sandwiches, the rest is pretty straightforward. keep on fightin the good fight
The reason people react strongly to veganism is twofold:
There are many vegans that are very "in your face," much in the same way that evangelical Christianity can be pushed too far. "You're either with me or you are a terrible person."
Some think that a vegan's decision to avoid animal products automatically means that the same vegan is passing judgement on those who still consume animal products.
I think we have fundamentally different outlooks on animal agriculture. It seems like your position may be based on the idea that animals used for milk and eggs are treated well, live long natural lives and are killed at the end of their lives when they would have died naturally.
I wish this were the case.
Animals used for milk and egg production live a small percentage of their potential lifespan. The effects on dairy cows of repeatedly being impregnated, giving birth, producing enormous quantities of milk, and going through the cycle again takes a harsh toll on their bodies. It's normal for a dairy cow to only endure 4 or 5 cycles of this before they literally cannot physically continue, at which point they're no longer profitable and are sold for slaughter. Similarly for egg-laying hens, the stress and mineral demand of ovulating multiple times a day means that they rarely live past two years. For the males of these breeds, it's even worse. Male chickens of the egg-laying breeds are mostly useless to the industry, so they are killed immediately after hatching, usually by way of an industrial macerator or gas chamber. Male calves might live to 8 months to be slaughtered for veal, but if there's no market for veal they are frequently killed immediately after birth.
Modern egg laying chickens and dairy cows are man-made breeds far removed from their natural wild counterparts. Hens trace their lineage to red jungle fowls, who naturally will have a single clutch of roughly 12 eggs once a year. Selective breeding has increased this amount to once a day, sometimes even more. The extreme pressure on their reproductive system frequently causes health issues like egg yolk peritonitis, cloacal prolapse, and osteoporosis. Similarly with modern dairy cows, bovine mastitis, udder sores and infections are common due to our selective breeding to maximize milk yields. Even otherwise healthy animals face grueling lives because they're part of a species that was selectively engineered for one purpose: profit.
Modern animal agriculture is overwhelmingly inhumane, which is why livestock animals are almost always excluded from animal abuse legislation. Ignoring the above points about how they've been selectively bred and are worked to exhaustion, investigations into egg and dairy farms have found absolutely shocking treatment. If you have the stomach for it, they're worth watching to understand the scope of animal abuse that is commonplace in our society.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Don't you love how when it's an animal they don't eat they're outraged, but animal agriculture is a-okay for no reason at all, and we're just militant vegans? Lol. Carnists.
Not condoning prison vigilante/revenge behavior, but if this guy's fellow inmates find out what he did, and that is very easy to do, he may be in for a horrible time in prison. Not sure if he will be put into a 'special-cases' prison for his own safety or whether he'll just go straight to a general public prison.
He has really bad paperwork and fellow prisoners always find out what your paperwork is as soon as you land in your new prison. Torture of animals is among the worst things one can do.
Again, I'm not condoning any of this. It's just the reality this guy faces in American prisons