The Dairy Industry’s Attempt to Silence Animal Activists in the U.K. Blew Up in Its Face

The meat and dairy industries know they’re losing public favor. Thanks to hard-hitting investigations, tireless advocacy, and a recent burst of brilliant and revealing documentaries and films, more and more people are seeing the truth about factory farming. And they’re choosing to ditch these industries’ cruel and unsustainable products.

Now the animal agriculture industry seems desperate to continue covering up the truth by silencing those who speak out against it. Well, in the U.K., one such attempt was resoundingly defeated in a recent decision by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). In February, Go Vegan World, a vegan advertising campaign run by Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary in Ireland, ran a newspaper ad declaring, “Humane milk is a myth. Don’t buy it.

The ad highlights how the dairy industry repeatedly impregnates cows so that their bodies will produce milk and steals their calves soon after birth so that the milk to be sold for profit is not consumed by the cows’ own babies. A female calf will be raised to suffer the same fate as her mother. A male calf will be slaughtered for veal.

The ad challenges the reader: “I could no longer participate in that. Can you?

Several complainants affiliated with the dairy industry filed a challenge to the ad with the ASA, a regulatory organization for the U.K.’s advertising industry, arguing that the ad was “misleading.

In a remarkable turn of events, the ASA found that the ad was not misleading because it accurately described standard dairy industry practices. The ASA said that since “calves were generally separated from their mothers very soon after birth, … the ad was unlikely to materially mislead readers.

This is a big deal. A powerful regulatory agency has acknowledged the inherent cruelty in the dairy industry.

This is not the only time animal agriculture has tried—and failed—to cover up the truth about factory farming. Back in 1998, Oprah Winfrey famously triumphed in a libel lawsuit filed against her by the beef industry. When Oprah declared that she would not eat another burger after interviewing former cattle rancher Howard Lyman, the beef industry sued her under the Texas “food disparagement” law. These types of laws make people afraid to publicly criticize the food industry. Although widely considered unconstitutional, there are 13 of these laws in the U.S.

Think about that for a second. The animal agriculture industry is so desperate to perpetuate its myths—like the “humane milk myth—that it not only attacks newspaper ads that depict the truth but pushes for laws that trample over basic civil liberties.