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.
I gotta admit, I was blissfully unaware that this was a thing. I really did not expect to read a headline like that this morning.
What in the fucking fuck is wrong with people? This motherfucker needs to spend the rest of his life behind bars. The biggest sign of a person becoming a serial killer is their treatment of animals. I mean, he’s already been to prison, so it’s not like he has any interest in being rehabilitated in prison.
I agree with you but to be fair our prison system is terrible at rehabilitation. Sure it works sometimes but it’s not their main focus.
Did you read about the prison that is denying everyone in person visits so they can charge money for phone calls and video calls? They’re getting a kick back from the companies whk run those systems. Fucking gross.
I am pretty sure that rehabilitation only happens in spite of our prison system.
The goal of the private prisons is to get the individual to commit more crimes so they get paid more. This means they are being paid to encourage and change people to break the law, as opposed to teach them to be better
The US prison system is punitive not rehabilitative.
Prisons and jails are what we have instead of mental healthcare.
I don’t think OP is looking to rehabilitate the torture king…
The biggest sign of a person becoming a serial killer is their treatment of animals.
I’m going to guess this is the second biggest sign with the first biggest sign being specifically their treatment of the animals most closely related to humans.
Like torturing worms? Maybe 50% chance
Torturing dogs has got to be a good 80%
Torturing monkeys has got to be like a 99%+ chance of being a serial killer.
Jesus Christ.
The second biggest sign is the huge ass Trump and confederate flag behind him.
I kept reading “words” as “women”… felt real concerned for a minute there
E: “worms.” I kept reading “worms” as “women.” It’s definitely time for bed now. ✌️
A woman who made crush videos involving kittens ended up being posted on 4chan. They did their thing. Last I heard she was never heard from again.
4chan is a true agent of chaos but sometimes they focus their powers on the right people.
Chaotic neutral at best. I tried 4chan a bit but hated the captchca system to post so looks like yall are stuck with me!
I’ve tried it more than a few times over the years. 99% of the time it’s porn and racism. It’s a website that’s best viewed at a distance with people take screenshots of the shit that’s actually worth seeing.
Depends on the board to be honest. The papercraft and origami one is surprisingly wholesome.
People assume all of it is like /pol/ since that is the most famous board with the highest traffic. It does leak into the other boards with the odd thread/post here and there but would say it’s not representative of the site.
Yay for prison. And crush his balls first.
State-sponsored torture is still torture. And, in my opinion, worse.
This sounds cruel and unusual.
Please do not forget that we are NOT him.
Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to be a portrait of yourself, rather then a mirror reflecting the world around you.
My paint is fading…
Assume the worst, and maybe one day you will be presently surprised.
One day…
Well I am shocked that a person like this would be A Trump supporter and love the Confederacy. /s
He should be up for now than 5 years. This is completely fucked.
Ironically, his 5 year sentence would be longer than the Confederacy lasted.
Don’t worry. Trump supporters will just hand wave this as some sort of false flag.
LMAO, they’ll call him a legitimate businessman running a legitimate business, why is the government getting in the way of a stand-up American’s monkey-torture distribution network!
Whaaaaat? Confederate and Trump flags? I’m so surprised!
With motherfuckin Ice Cube on a T-shirt that’s hanging on the wall, too. Says “Boyz N Da Hood” and everything.
What song of his do you think this POS likes?
That CAT shirt isn’t a good look either. That company is full of sadistic fuckers. They’ll probably promote him for this.
He didn’t do the actual stuff though, he got people in Indonesia to do it.
Congratulations, you’ve figured out what a distributor does.
Okay? People in the comments are talking as if he’s the one doing the torturing and killing.
Alternately, you’re talking as if facilitating the whole network, including the torturing and killing, is somehow better than doing the actual torturing and killing.
Yes, running chat groups is not as bad as actually torturing and killing monkeys.
This type of comment always really bothers me. You are misrepresenting what is being compared. It’s not running chatrooms that is being judged. It’s facilitating and organizing the creation and distribution of animal torture content. If he was running chatrooms about my little pony no one would care. Framing it as running chat rooms is dishonest. Flying planes isn’t bad. Flying planes into buildings is. Say out loud the part you are trying to to minimize.
How so? I didn’t say he ran some innocent or general chat groups, they were obviously involved in horrific shit. You are misrepresenting what I am saying.
Willing to say the same thing about child porn and sex trafficking?
Why not? If you do the act yourself it’s worse than asking someone. Just like it would be for murder, the murderer gets longer behind bars, this is not surprising.
Was he charged with “running a chat group?” Or “conspiracy to create and distribute animal-crushing videos?”
What did he do?
Organizing the torture of hundreds of animals is better than torturing one animal yourself?
Good strawman.
Boy are you wrong
Why?
Somebody check this guy’s hard drive ASAP. Nobody makes this kind of argument unless they’re downloading some deranged shit from Telegram.
You’d be surprisingly bored.
Hitler probably didn’t kill many/any of the Jews himself either…
He even was nice to that one little Jewish girl. So obviously, he deserves some slack.
Yes, someone made the same point already.
I think you are projecting. I don’t see that anywhere. Just people saying that the sentence should be longer. Which it should be. It should be considered as something like federal trafficking with a minimum of 5 years and up to 40 years. I bet they would have sentenced him with more than 5 years if it was CP he was trafficking.
Why would you think that? I’m not interested if you think I’m discussing in bad faith.
Yeah, I’m the one arguing in bad faith. This is exactly why I think you are projecting.
I didn’t say that. No interest whatsoever in your pisspoor understanding and attempt at using words you do not know how to use.
Read the book Whipping Star. It isn’t very long. If you get to the end and can’t see the corollary, I’d be happy to point them out to you.
I have too many books and papers on the go at the moment, feel free to summarise it.
Imagine defending the fucking torture king
Imagine imagining that I am.
The comment you originally responded to didn’t say that he did the torturing himself, so your unsolicited response that “he didn’t do the actual stuff though” absolutely comes across as an attempt to minimize the things that he is accused of doing according to the article.
That sounds like a defense to me. You think we should give him slack because of his distance to the violence he was orchestrating.
No, I do not think that.
Conspiracy then. Just as bad.
How so?
You’re overdoing it now.
Overdoing what? If you don’t want to engage in discussion you don’t have to be here.
Meanwhile, Charles Manson is in prison, even though he never killed anyone with his own hands.
He died like 7 years ago.
In that case he received the same sentence as Atkins, death, commuted to life. Good example, although he was more directly involved due to proximity.
Which adds a while other level of hypocrisy. Why can’t he have good ol’ Americans do the job? Are they not good enough for him?
Also don’t care that he did not directly do it. He was facilitating it and it would not have happened on the same scale without his help. So in essence, he absolutely caused the torture of monkeys. Should someone who goes a hitman not be charged with anything? The hit man isn’t killing the victim without pay so obviously the person hiring one should be charged.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50137450
This was the example which came to mind, where the original person was sentenced with the strongest punishment, then the subsequent people each received subsequently lighter ones.
However this disagrees with my stance, and gave the person who requested a hitman a longer sentence than the two who committed the murder (24, v 16 and 20 years respectively).
I upvoted you, by the way, in case you thought it was me who downvoted.
Wow! When you put it that way he’s basically a political prisoner. BRB going to set up a gofundme for this sweet misunderstood angel.
… monkey torture enthusiasts …
wat
Pretty sure anyone claiming to be that just likes torture, and monkeys are the closest they can get to humans without facing way more prison time.
Pretty much this. They’re about two steps removed from actual serial killer tendencies - I’m betting more than a few of these guys wound up needing a fresh pair of underwear after making a video, if you get me.
If this was an onion headline I’d think it’s maybe a little too outlandish to be believable.
Dude literally just crushed monkeys for… Profit? What in the nine hells would compel a person to do that. To pay to see it??
I’ve heard of KittenCrush, but not MonkeyCrush… I think the KittenCrush folks are also in prison.
:( oh noes
…animal-crushing videos…
Somehow it gets worse with every sentence
“torture, murder, and sexually sadistic mutilation of animals” it gets worse
Mr Macartney has cooperated with investigators from the Department of Homeland Security and agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges. He will formally make a plea later this month and is facing up to five years in prison.
WHAT THE FUCK. 5 YEARS?!
FOR SEXUALLY ABUSING, TORTURING, AND MUTILATING ANIMALS FOR PROFIT?!
And of course hes a MAGAt. Fucking soulless, worthless cumstains on the fabric of society.
Distributing 500 grams of cocaine? 5 year prison sentence.
Distributing 5 grams of cocaine cut with baking soda? 5 year prison sentence.
Sexually abusing, mutilating, and slaughtering animals in the most sadistic methods imaginable? 5 year prison sentence.
American criminal justice system is extremely normal.
white conservatives get slapped on the wrist no matter how egregious their crimes.
And yet they still scream about “Woke”. I guess a part of their subconscious is self aware.
Do they scream Woke still?
I thought they moved on to DEI?
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*Up to 5 years. So probably 2 with good behaviour.
I could have done without knowing that this was a thing. What a fucking world.
I already knew that animal torture communities were present, especially on YouTube where they seem to focus mainly on feeding random animals to large snakes, so the news is welcome to me because it’s one less thing to feel sad about. I hope those people continue getting exposed and charged for their crimes.
You see, sometimes you see some fucked up shit in a movie and you think “oh ok, this is just for the sake of story, there’s no way this has ever happened in real life”
Then you read an article like this.The groups were used to share ideas for custom-made torture videos, such as setting live monkeys on fire, injuring them with tools and even putting one in a blender.
How… How do you even come back from this? Is there any hope these people can get rehabilitated? I’m struggling to believe the answer is anything other than “NO.”
I don’t think there is.
I’d like to understand the physical and mental variations between the relatively normal population at large and these cretins, just to see if it’s lead poisoning or what, but I’d pay tax money to let them eat nutrient loaf behind bars forever.
I say just do to them what they did to the animals.
That’s problematic, you’ll have to find the same kind of people and pay them.
Rather just terminate them.
Nah, you just put them up against each other, Thunderdome style, then execute the winner.
I don’t like the idea of doing things their way, even by their own hands.
Just chair or gallows or something like that.
I think the same about Azeri war criminals (basically their entire army) too, for example.
On one hand I understand that society needs to be better than those it punishes.
On the other hand I’m wondering if we hit the hunger games or the running man first…
How… How do you even come back from this?
The sort of shit a 12 year old would come up with in a video game in an attempt to shock one’s friends made manifest IRL by grown ass adults.
These people need watching for the rest of their lives to make sure they’re not a serial killer in training because they’re totally a serial killer in training.
Serial killers always escalate this is what they do they start off being cruel to animals and then it goes from there. These people can be stopped before they get anywhere else.
What. The. Fuck.
Monkey. Torture. Enthusiast.
Never thought I’d see those words together in a row.
There is a lengthy BBC article that went into the discovery of this network. Thank journalists. Without journalists this network would likely be alive, well, and thriving. Journalists infiltrated the group and started passing info to the authorities.
When people lament the loss of journalism, catching people like this is what we are losing.
investigative journalism is the UV light to the problems in society.
Which is why those in power have done everything they can to buy up these journalism outlets and destroy their investigative teams.
It’s painful to see. And obvious the motivations.
You’ve just criticised someone for “sticking their nose in” and now you’re defending investigative journalism?
You really live up to your username.
You are a special kind of stupid, arent you?
Explain the difference using pictures then please…
It sounds unreal. Like, it looks like it’s the name of a punk band, not an accurate description of a human that exists.
Planet Earth
This psycho is only facing 5 years in prison?! Yikes
Nuke us from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure
I second that.
Working on waking up the Old Ones over here, will speed up.
Depending on the monkey or ape species I feel like this is on par with torturing human babies or young toddlers. They’re completely helpless and as intelligent and self-aware.
What the fuck
Yeah, what the fuck
Yeah, seriously. Reading that kinda fucked up my evening. Fuck that guy.
I guess it doesn’t really matter how big of a shitter I am on my life, I’ll always be outshines by a professional piece of shit like this.
It’s not gonna stop me from wanting to improve myself and helping those around me as best I can. Peace
Five years in prison for that is a joke.
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.
And every person here who still consumes animal products is a hypocrite.
Posted from your Chinese slave labor built electronic device.
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.
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=107498
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.
lol. Calls everyone a hypocrite but doesn’t know DICK about Samsung. Motherfucker!
keep fighting the power buddy! good work
https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/036/647/Screen_Shot_2021-03-01_at_2.28.39_PM.jpg
You really are the “Yet you participate” meme
lol. Found the militant vegan.
I think there are other more modest proposals then quitting meat.
Be a part of the solution!
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.
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.
3 reasons
People don’t like being reminded they are in the wrong.
-
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
Dairy and eggs don’t kill animals in a cruel way. It’s animal exploitation yes but who amongst us aren’t exploited?
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.
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Yeah, because buying eggs at the supermarket is bushcraft survival training
Dairy is produced by a cow being forcibly raped, kept pregnant, her milk stolen, and her babies torn away from her. It is cruel
You never seen an egg laid without a shell because of the stress the chicken is under huh?
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.
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?
How about you let people eat what they want to eat and you just worry about yourself.
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?
well yeah but they taste bad if you let them get old
Taste is subjective, and it changes in response to what you eat. The vast majority of people are used to what are called hyper-palatable foods - foods that are scientifically formulated to be addictive. Every food that is not hyper-palatable tastes flavorless by comparison.
If you get used to eating real food - that is, real plants in their whole, generally intact forms - then hyper-palatable foods end up tasting disgustingly salty.
Point is, plants taste perfectly fine.
the vast majority of make dairy calves are brought to full weight before slaughter: 18-20 months
Everywhere I’ve looked says the same - cows can live 15-20 years and possibly even longer. That’s significantly more life than 18-20 months.
that chart is all lies. none of those animals have a natural lifespan that long
Source?
I disagree with you but that is an informative graph. I knew egg laying chickens were killed before they were a year old but 5 months is wild.
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?
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.
Yeah, that bullshit “i’m not a vegan, I’m just gonna say vegan things” act wont pass here.
Also, I love how you are trying to claim something that a significant portion of all animal life on the planet does is “weird”.
Like, maybe thats a you problem, bro.
I bet the people who ran these animal torture rings feel the same way.
Oh, absolutely not. I just wanted people to see how they will respond to a reasonable request.
my moneys on calling you a murderer, lol
If we’re going by names then, well…
Says the motherfucker with a Samsung phone.
lol. Psycho.
I hope we have a swift solution.
As someone who consumes meat products, you are right.
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
Yeah, there’s usually two things that a lot of people in prisons hold sacrosanct: animals and kids.
That extends to women as well, to a certain degree.
Wow, I’m shocked that somebody doing such horrible things would take the time to support “states’ rights” as well!
…well, not that shocked.
Definitely a trump poster to the right of that, you can see the edge of it.
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I will not lie, I did not click the article.
I am so sick of reading about these types, lol. :)
The Confederacy: Where states have rights and people don’t.
But what about corporations, precious?
Well, aesthetically there is a perception of “states’ rights” which doesn’t feel so ghoulish. I live in Russia, so outright racism is both less visible and more casual here, and I don’t have most of emotional and social associations with this flag Americans have.
Point being - there’s “Firefly” series, there are Jabiim rebels in Star Wars (and a few other “bad guys against the Republic” groups which them became “good guys against the Empire”), and maybe something else definitely using the association with Confederates in a kinda positive way.
EDIT: I mean, in his case it’s just that cowards usually feel the need to use symbols associated with toughness for them. Or torture animals.
