Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) is a group of animal rights activists who break into factory farms, release animals, and film it all with VR cameras. In spring 2020, two members will face trial for their efforts. That’s when they’ll try to make history 1/ wired.trib.al/9AG21Tf
DxE hopes to use their trial to stage an unprecedented, ‘Clockwork Orange’–style stunt. They plan to request that the jury—and perhaps the prosecutors and judge—be required to strap on VR headsets and be immersed in the scenes they’ve captured 2/ wired.trib.al/9AG21Tf 
DxE points to laws that allow people to trespass to stop animal cruelty or help an animal in a life-threatening situation. Rescuing a starving piglet from a factory farm, they say, is no different than breaking a window to save a dog locked in a hot car 3/ wired.trib.al/9AG21Tf
DxE’s founder, Wayne Hsiung, faces up to 60 years in prison for his activism. But even as his charges mount, he’s never been more optimistic. He believes the empathic power of VR can radically change the way people view the American meat industry 4/ wired.trib.al/9AG21Tf
If, in a kind of VR-induced miracle, Hsiung and his codefendants convince a jury of their legal argument, they believe they’ll have won a victory against factory farms that could unlock a new wave of similar operations 5/ wired.trib.al/9AG21Tf
But if this Hail Mary tactic fails and Hsiung loses? “Then there will be a lot of people asking why a person is sitting in prison for decades,” he says, “for recording some videos and taking two piglets to the vet.” 6/ wired.trib.al/9AG21Tf
