PETA confirms what we all knew – they are not above “fake news”

This isn’t exactly breaking news: PETA is willing to lie and fabricate things to advance its mission of animal liberation. While this doesn’t come as a surprise to those of us who are used to being maligned by this group, you may be shocked at just how far PETA has revealed itself to be willing to go. This Mashable headline from last week says it all (although I’d strike the “new” part): “PETA”s new formula: deception, manipulation, and fake animal abuse.” According to the article, PETA was working with a PR firm to pitch an animal abuse story to media outlets. The story included a video of a man abusing a cat – “a disturbing new video that depicts a cat suffering at the hands of its owner. It’s difficult to watch. It’s also completely fake.” The video was produced using computer animation, and looks convincingly real. The agency and PETA were going to release the footage and were asking media outlets to cover it without including the fact that it is fake. After the video went viral, PETA would come forward and admit that it was fake (yeah, I’m sure they’d be working really hard to spread that message). Somehow, using logic that I am not following, this fake video was supposed to bring awareness to actual animal abuse.