An animal welfare organisation has welcomed efforts by the Hong Kong police to have footage of an animal cruelty incident in Guangdong removed from local social media platforms. Following a backlash, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) said it hoped the move would prevent copycat incidents.
An SPCA poster depicting a dog and her puppies that were killed in a village in mainland China, posted on July 15, 2026. Photo: SPCA.
In a Wednesday statement, the SPCA said that it was “deeply saddened” by the killing of a stray dog and her puppies in Jieyang, Guangdong province.
Videos of children beating the dogs with sticks and setting them on fire went viral on Chinese social media earlier this week. The footage was then reposted to Threads.
“Any act of animal abuse, or of taking pleasure in the suffering of living beings, is utterly unacceptable and must never be dismissed lightly as a joke or prank,” the SPCA said in a Facebook post.
The group said that there was still “considerable room” for improvement in animal protection. It called for more comprehensive legal protections that addressed the legal responsibility of parents or guardians in cases where animals are harmed by children.
SPCA. Photo: Wikicommons.
Mainland China does not have nationwide legislation against animal cruelty, though some cities and provinces have introduced local laws. The SPCA said in its Wednesday statement that it was working with mainland organisations to explore the possibility of a “Companion Animal Protection Ordinance” in certain cities.
Police report
The SPCA said it had reported the incident to the Hong Kong police, despite the incident not falling under the force’s jurisdiction. The force said it would request that Threads and YouTube remove the videos, the statement read.
“We welcome any action that helps prevent the further spread of violent and harmful content, and we expect all relevant platforms to act swiftly and responsibly,” the statement concluded.
Meta logo and Threads app on a phone. Photo: Julio Lopez, via Pexels.
The call for the videos to be taken down was met with pushback, with one user saying that the videos were important to inform the public: “I know it is disturbing and upsetting but these are the exact reasons why more people need to know what happened.”
“Removing the video reduces the number of people who know the truth, making it more difficult to push for protection,” another said in Chinese.
Some users asked why the welfare organisation asked the police to have footage of an incident in mainland China scrubbed from social media platforms in Hong Kong. “Will these incidents decrease once anti-animal abuse posts in Hong Kong are taken down?” one asked in Chinese.
A video of the incident on Threads seen earlier by HKFP has been removed from the platform, with the link only yielding a pop-up that says “Post Unavailable.” The user who posted the video complained about the video being deleted.
The SPCA issued an apology later that evening, saying that it was never its intention “to prevent the truth from being shared or discussed.”
It said its post was meant to spread awareness and encourage engagement. “At the same time, we hope to do so in a way that avoids encouraging imitation by teenagers, while urging the relevant authorities to take the matter seriously and handle it with appropriate follow-up,” it said.