Facebook removes pro-Israel page with over 75 million followers after 'cyber terrorism' campaign by Islamic radicals, page founder says

The founder of a pro-Israel Facebook page that had over 75 million followers says Facebook shut down the page after "radical Islamic" groups reportedly waged a "cyber terrorism" campaign targeting the page with hate speech.

Mike Evans, the founder of the "Jerusalem Prayer Team" page, told CBN News his Facebook page was the target of a harassment campaign that was orchestrated by radical Islamic organizations who posted fake comments and then reported those comments as spam to Facebook.

"There was an organized attempt by radical Islamic organizations to achieve this objective. They posted over a million comments on our site, and then had the people contact Facebook saying that they never posted to the site," Evans said. "That was a complete scam and fraud. It was a very clever, deceptive plan by Islamic radicals."

Evans, who is currently in Israel leading people around the world in prayer for the country amid renewed violence with Hamas and Palestinian terrorist groups, said his page was flooded with anti-Semitic comments — including photos of and quotes from Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. He also said the same groups that posted the comments directed people to report them to Facebook, flagging them as spam that violated the platform's terms of service.

Also, some users claimed Facebook made them follow the page without their consent.

On Friday, Facebook informed the Jerusalem Prayer Team that the page was suspended. Evans received a message from Facebook indicating the case was "complete" and that "no further action" will be taken.

"These Pages were deleted by our system due to being not Policy Compliant. Sadly, we can't review appeals at this time due to a shortage in reviewers caused by the Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak. Since you are unable to access the Page, this means that the appealing is no longer an option. There's no further action that we can take for these Pages.

"Please consider this decision final," Facebook reportedly told him.

Evans also says he cannot post content to his personal Facebook page and that multiple attempts to contact Facebook representatives have gone unanswered.

In a statement to the New York Post, a Facebook spokesperson said: "We removed Jerusalem Prayer Team's Facebook Page for violating our rules against spam and inauthentic behavior."

"Facebook got caught with its pants down. Facebook has been accused of being biased towards conservative media sources. This is a prime example of bias on steroids. It's, in my opinion, cyber terrorism based upon racism," Evans told CBN News. "I've contacted Senator friends, such as Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, my dear friend, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Jared Kushner, and dozens of other political leaders to assist me with this fraudulent scheme to damage our good work."