News

Breaking news and publications from Direct Action Everywhere.

Media inquiry? Please email press@dxe.io.

Featured

All News

PRESS RELEASE

VIDEO: UCB Students Present Satirical “Factory Farm Defender” Award to Chancellor Carol Christ

April 10, 2022

UCB administrators claim the world’s largest chicken producer doesn’t use factory farming

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

VIDEO: UCB Students Present Satirical “Factory Farm Defender” Award to Chancellor Carol Christ

April 10, 2022

Read More

PRESS

Protester disrupts committee hearing

April 7, 2022

The Sacramento Bee

“This bill, the ‘No More Factory Farms’ bill, should have been heard, and I’m here to make sure that that happens,” Cabral said after her microphone was cut.

Read More

PRESS

Protester disrupts committee hearing

April 7, 2022

The Sacramento Bee

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

VIDEO: Animal Activist Superglues Herself to Table at California State Capitol, Disrupts Assembly Meeting

April 5, 2022

Bill for moratorium against new factory farms was changed into bill calling for a study of the industry’s impacts

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

VIDEO: Animal Activist Superglues Herself to Table at California State Capitol, Disrupts Assembly Meeting

April 5, 2022

Read More

PRESS

Opinion: It’s time for Californians to talk about the cow in the room

March 31, 2022

Mercury News

In the midst of the turmoil over our diminishing water supply, an often-overlooked industry operates without scrutiny — consuming the lion’s share of California’s diminishing water

Read More

PRESS

Opinion: It’s time for Californians to talk about the cow in the room

March 31, 2022

Mercury News

Read More

TOP PRESS

My first job was slitting the throats of chickens at a slaughterhouse. It changed me forever

March 22, 2022

San Francisco Chronicle

Compelling testimony by a former slaughterhouse worker who is now a member of DxE's core organizing team.

Read More

TOP PRESS

My first job was slitting the throats of chickens at a slaughterhouse. It changed me forever

March 22, 2022

San Francisco Chronicle

Read More

PRESS

‘Baywatch’ actress, animal rights investigator responds to Devon Mathis blog

March 17, 2022

The Business Journal

Alexandra Paul responds to Assemblymember Devon Mathis' op-ed in which he defends factory farming and shares his plans to kill AB 2764, the No More Factory Farms bill.

Read More

PRESS

‘Baywatch’ actress, animal rights investigator responds to Devon Mathis blog

March 17, 2022

The Business Journal

Read More

TOP PRESS

Why the Anti-Factory Farming Movement Needs Direct Action

March 14, 2022

Current Affairs

DxE activists are showing that anyone can, if they give themselves permission, start creating the world they want to live in.

Read More

TOP PRESS

Why the Anti-Factory Farming Movement Needs Direct Action

March 14, 2022

Current Affairs

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

100+ Attend State Capitol Rally Supporting Factory Farm Moratorium Bill

March 8, 2022

The coalition event featured attendees representing Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), Sunrise Bay Area and the CA Democratic Environmental Caucus.

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

100+ Attend State Capitol Rally Supporting Factory Farm Moratorium Bill

March 8, 2022

Read More

PRESS

Livestock, poultry operations create pandemic fears. Bill to suspend growth proposed

March 5, 2022

The Fresno Bee

Dr. Crystal Health outlines the health risks of factory farming and the urgent need to stop the industry's expansion.

Read More

PRESS

Livestock, poultry operations create pandemic fears. Bill to suspend growth proposed

March 5, 2022

The Fresno Bee

Read More

Our Top Press Hits

TOP PRESS

These California and Colorado Ballot Measures Are Terrifying the Meat Industry

October 10, 2024

Vox

In principle, there’s a lot of sense in capping the size of factory farms. Measure J’s proponents are betting that progressive Sonoma County, better known for its tasting rooms than its slaughterhouses, can push California — and the nation — in that direction.

Read More

TOP PRESS

Secret Recordings Capture the Ugly Reality Inside a Denver Slaughterhouse

October 9, 2024

The Intercept

Videos shared with The Intercept prior to the report’s public release show, among other scenes, lambs with their throats slit hanging upside down and thrashing on the slaughter line; one animal with an internal organ that has been torn inside-out and left dangling behind it as it heads to slaughter; injured lambs being led to slaughter; workers laughing, spanking animals, and engaging in simulated sex acts with nearby machinery as lambs are having their throats slit; and the apparent use of so-called Judas sheep — adult sheep kept alive at the facility and used to lead the young sheep to slaughter.

Read More

TOP PRESS

Sonoma Loves Its Farms. Activists Call Them Factories. Could a Ballot Measure Upend This County?

August 30, 2024

San Francisco Chronicle

In dimly lit indoor aisles at Weber Family Farms in Petaluma, hundreds of thousands of white chickens live out their 90 weeks of life. They fly from perch to perch. They dust bathe in the bedding. They nip at water dispensers. They lay egg after egg. And they never leave. These barns are at the heart of a bitter fight that Mike Weber and Samantha Faye are waging for the future of local farming.

Read More

TOP PRESS

Groups Seek to Ban Large-Scale Animal Farming in Sonoma County

April 4, 2024

Los Angeles Times

Lewis Bernier, an animal rights activist supporting the initiative, said he has visited several factory farms across the country, documenting inhumane treatment, and one farm in Sonoma County stands out as having “the worst and most systemic animal cruelty that I’ve ever seen.”

Read More

TOP PRESS

An Animal-Rights Activist and the Problem of Political Despair

March 15, 2024

The New Yorker

Instead of planning actions, many activists now spend their time litigating microaggressions and small disputes within their ranks... As a response, [DxE co-founder Wayne] Hsiung has tried to promote a maxim of "braver spaces, not safer spaces," which encourages the animal rights community to put aside their individual concerns, if possible, and do things like risk felony jail time for the cause.

Read More

TOP PRESS

A California Town Will Vote on Banning Factory Farms. What Does That Mean for the Rest of the US?

January 30, 2024

The Guardian

If successful in Berkeley, a liberal San Francisco Bay Area town that’s often been at the forefront of US environmental policy, the method can be replicated elsewhere, [activists] say. “We can pave the path to abolishing factory farming,” said Cassie King, an organizer with Direct Action Everywhere, one of the groups that pushed for the measure.

Read More

TOP PRESS

You’re More Likely to Go to Prison for Exposing Animal Cruelty Than for Committing It

November 9, 2023

Vox

Hsiung’s trial and conviction show the extraordinary difficulty of trying to discuss what happens to animals on factory farms in a legal system that only sees them as property. At both factory farms in this case, DxE had documented gruesome conditions prior to their open rescue actions and had submitted animal cruelty complaints to authorities (though no action was taken by legal officials, King said). Yet it was the activists, not the farm owners, who were criminally charged and had to explain themselves to a jury.

Read More

TOP PRESS

This Is the Ops Manual for the Most Tech-Savvy Animal Liberation Group in the US

November 8, 2023

Wired

For the first time, guerrilla animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere reveals a guide to its investigative tactics and toolkit, from spy cams to night vision and drones. Bernier says that DxE decided to publicly release its guide, even in the wake of Hsiung’s conviction, to help activists who are already committed to carrying out covert investigations do their work more safely and effectively.

Read More

TOP PRESS

Animal Rights Activist Convicted of Felony for Rescuing Sick Chickens

November 4, 2023

The Intercept

Hsiung’s defense was in many ways stymied from the jump. The judge barred almost all photo and video evidence of animal cruelty from the trial, as has been the case in a number of previous DxE trials. As I’ve previously noted, the decision to disallow such evidence is usually made to benefit a defendant — not showing gruesome images of a murder victim, for example. Such logic has been flipped in DxE cases, including Hsiung’s most recent, to the benefit of powerful agribusiness.

Read More

DxE's Blog

BLOG

On Cooperative Learning

April 3, 2015

Read More

BLOG

The Backlash Effect: How to Transform Violence into Justice

March 18, 2015

Read More

BLOG

The Angelfish in the Room, Part II: Aquatic Communities

March 13, 2015

Read More

BLOG

"An Opiate to the Conscience": Welfarism as a Step to Animal Liberation?

March 12, 2015

Read More

BLOG

Vegan Options are Not Animal Liberation

March 6, 2015

Read More

BLOG

What Ringling Bros. Can Teach Us About Protest (Hint: It Works)

March 5, 2015

Read More

BLOG

What if Everything We Think We Know about Social Change Is Wrong?

March 4, 2015

Read More

BLOG

Interview with Baltimore-Based Animal Liberationist Brenda Sanders

March 3, 2015

Read More

BLOG

How Did I End Up Here?

February 11, 2015

Read More

Our Press Releases

PRESS RELEASE

19 Arrested at California State Capitol Building Protest Demanding Factory Farm Moratorium

October 1, 2020

Arrestees include photographers and videographers, as well as activists who chained themselves to the building

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

UC Berkeley students holding dead piglets chain themselves to Sather Gate, following exposé of University pork supplier

August 25, 2020

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

Woman Arrested After Spraying Pig Feces at Home of Smithfield CEO

August 7, 2020

Smithfield faces nuisance lawsuit judgements totaling hundreds of millions for waste pollution sprayed disproportionately on communities of color

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

24 Hour Slaughterhouse Vigil Follows Release of Shocking Mini-Documentary

July 14, 2020

Rotting pig carcasses are seen being fed on by wild animals after workers cut infected flesh out of carcasses before selling them for human consumption

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

Animal Rights Protestors at SF City Hall Demand City Divest from Animal Agriculture, Citing Pandemic Disease Risk

July 3, 2020

Activists say proposal for partial divestment doesn’t go far enough

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

Facing Prosecution, Animal Rights Group Seeks Court Order on Reyes' Funding Sources

June 23, 2020

Factory farm investigator alleges improper connections between Smithfield Inc. and Utah Attorney General

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

“Roasting Pigs Alive” Exposé, Protest Campaign Culminates in Major Pork Supplier Ending Controversial “Ventilation Shutdown” Practice

June 5, 2020

Twelve activists now face charges, including felonies, as campaign seeks industry-wide ban

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

Coordinated Nationwide Protests Against Smithfield Follow Outbreaks, Exposés and Prosecutions

April 15, 2020

Protesters of Smithfield slaughterhouses and vendors say it undermines the well-being of employees, animals, whistleblowers and the public

Read More

PRESS RELEASE

Anti-Dairy Activist Arrested Following Latest Protest at Biden Event

March 5, 2020

Organizers now planning major demonstrations with 1000+ #LetDairyDie activists, calling on supporters nationwide to join

Read More