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Hm, if what was going on in factory farms was considered so moral, you wonder why there are so many laws trying to hush it all up...
Honestly, I doubt they give a fuck about the pictures.
Ever seen a drone flying over a herd of cattle? If it's low enough it panics them. They start sprinting away from them. I know a few ranchers who use them to roundup their cattle rather than chase after them.
Now you take this behavior in a pen. They sprint into the fences - damaging the fences and injuring or even killing the cattle.
You don't think the industry cares about the impact of photos like this one from the article? 99% of people outside of the industry have no idea of the scale of the industry or that calf hutches even exist
People have a very idealistic view of what goes on in any portion of animal agriculture
One very recent study (Ventura et al., 2016), involving face-to-face interviews with 50 members of the Canadian public that had little or no experience with dairy farming, highlighted zero-grazing and cow-calf separation as particularly contentious for the participants. In fact, attitudes regarding the welfare of cattle on dairy farms, which were initially primarily positive, declined after the participants visited a dairy farm.
https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(17)30193-5/fulltext
I remember reading through the oral arguments from the US house of representatives Office of the Clerk website for a bill about banning aerial photography near meat processing plants . The republican speakers only talked about "national security", and how drones could be used to target our nations vital factory farming infrastructure, while the dem speakers talked about this being a push to hide factory farm conditions from customers. Neither side seemed to consider the possibility of scaring cattle to do damage a relevant matter in this case, especially considering that intentionally causing damage to equipment and cattle is already a legal offense, so there would be no need for further regulation. So it does seem like the intention is to hide the conditions around the welfare of factory farm animals.
Meat processing plants are a very different environment from a "factory farm" aka feedlots. They haul the animals in, pen them for a short time under tight quarters with just water. Then push them through the killing line. Due to the tight quarters they don't have much room to move around and injure themselves. There is also only a couple of mega-companies that own these facilities today. They do care very much about their image to the public.
Feedlots or dairies are where cattle are confined for years. They are extremely skittish of anything new due to lack of exposure. Since there are thousands of these around and they are more removed from the consumer, they tend to care more about immediate monetary losses more than PR.
Its the same effect as showing people what goes into a hot dog. Pink slime is nasty but they still sell a shit ton of them. (Not to me..gag.) So no, at this point I don't think the feedlot and dairy owners care that much about the photos getting out.
If the FCC bans drones flying over their herd, they can freely shoot, net, etc them down before they injure the animals. Currently drone operators would be liable for damage only after it is caused.
I do occasionally entertain myself when bored around organic enthusiast. I mention that the organic industry use of manure is completely dependent on factory farming of beef, chicken and the widespread use of GMO crops. Gets some of the more ignorant people all worked up.
The industry cares a lot about its image in general. For instance the beef industry has a dedicated team watching social media for beef related conversations online 24/7
Using checkoff money, NCBA has developed what it has called a “Digital Command Center” – a sophisticated online monitoring system that tracks media outlets and social media for more than 200 beef-related topics. Hosted in Denver in a space that “looks like a military operations center combined with the TV section at an electronics retailer”, according to a recent Cattlemen’s Beef Board mailer sent to ranchers, the command center alerts members of NCBA’s issues management and media relations team whenever stories or online chatter rise above a certain threshold. It’s staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with personnel redundancies built in to make sure someone’s always watching.
Inside big beef’s climate messaging machine: confuse, defend and downplay
You don’t think the industry cares about the impact of photos like this one from the article?
We're in a post truth society. So I question how impactful it really is these days even with video evidence. This has been fought for decades and taught in at least 2 generations of school by now, but progress is still slow.
I think that's what they mean above. They are past the phase where they bother trying to hide it. But I'd love to be proven wrong.
This industry is so horrifying that the current state is them trying to hide what they used to say in the open. Some quotes of the past are unthinkable to say aloud today, despite the industry very much still thinking that way
National Hog Farmer 1976
"Forget the pig is an animal. Treat him just like a machine in a factory. Schedule treatments like you would lubrication. Breeding season is the first step in an assembly line. And marketing like the delivery of finished goods"
March 1978’s National Hog Farmer
"The breeding sow should be thought of, and treated as, a valuable piece of machinery whose function is to pump out baby pigs like a sausage machine."
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2022/08/forget-they-are-an-animal
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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