In recent times, some of my friends have become quite upset by the actions of Facebook. It seems that Facebook is fast becoming a joke, especially with their hypocritical religious intolerance, as they clearly demonstrated when they disabled my account.
I have read many complaints by people about the religious intolerance exhibited by Facebook, but the manner in which it happened to me was shocking.
It is not that this bothers me personally, as it actually happened a month ago, but for the fact that many friends are unhappy at my mistreatment. Am I surprised at Facebook doing this? Not at all, just that the manner in which it was done was quite tyrannical.
The Good
My Facebook friends come from all walks of life, including Muslims, Atheists, Christians, Prisoners, wrestlers, ex-porn artists, homosexuals, family people, professionals, just name them. While I cannot boast to have reached the 5000 limit for personal account, I think I had over 2000 people as friends and had real communication with some 90% of them; at least, I ALWAYS wrote every new friend and always sent birthday greetings to them, one of the features I really loved about Facebook. As you may guess, as a male, I tend to forget people’s birthday quite often – even mine!
I enjoyed poking many friends as well, something a friend, Okey Ifeachor, got me involved in. Initially, I questioned the man’s intentions, not understanding why a man would want to poke me. However, he soon explained that it was a way of reminding me that I am a blessed soul. That changed my perspective and I subsequently started asking friends to poke me so that once I saw a poke, I felt inclined to pray for that person specifically. Beautiful tool!
The Bad
Then because I love to share current affairs from a spiritual perspective, some people with different opinions will often kick up a fuss, while some would just share their opinions. Some will even “unfriend” me because we didn’t share the same opinion. Interestingly though, some of the friends of those that unfriended me will agree with my opinions and they will send me friend requests.
Having different opinions on a subject should not result in enmity but often, because of the sad state of the human heart, that is what we find happening. Worse still, some trolls will see or read some statements/comments out of context and just jump in with terrible comments.
I started, and belonged to quite a few groups initially and as time went on friends started adding me to other groups until I ended up being added to more than 200 groups. Sometimes I was added to these groups with my consent and at other times without my consent. In fact, I was even made admins in many of these groups without being informed and were it not for the notification system of Facebook, I would not have had a clue as to how many groups I belonged to. However, all this was done in good faith; people just loved me and knew that I love them, too.
In the middle of all these, I belonged to some Islamic-centred groups. How this really started I cannot remember, but the more I interacted with Muslims from around the world – India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc, the more I grew to love them, understanding more about Islam and their cultures as well.
Sometimes, we would engage in fierce debates, one of which was whether Jesus is the Son of God. This debate arose because Muslims refuse to agree with the Bible that The Son of God is God and they would claim that the Bible was already corrupted literature and so on and so forth.
In the middle of this, some Muslims who felt slighted as a result of my Biblical stance, would start throwing tantrums while others would start calling me names. Those never bothered me. But the worst started emerging when some of them started reporting me to Facebook, claiming religious infringement. However, NONE of these people has ever seen me write anything blasphemous or threatening nor have they seen me use profanity against them.
The Ugly
It was that which led to Facebook disabling my account. Some Muslims reported to Facebook that I was using a fake identity and without making any attempt to investigate the allegations Facebook disabled my account. They wrote to me requesting that I send in my proof of identity, which I did, but for some reason they keep denying that they have received the photo I attached. Here is a copy of their latest email:
I have used my mobile phone to confirm access to my account several times through your network – you can call me to verify that I am a real person!
Many of my friends are angry at the way you treated me, I am quiet because I am a Christian and do not need to make a fuss, otherwise you are just being hypocritical in your dealings. How can all the above FB names be real and acceptable to you while my name with REAL photo IDs seen on my website, Twitter and other social media websites be questioned about my ID?
On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 5:04 PM, The Facebook Team <> wrote:
Hi,
We need to verify your identity before we grant you access to this account. If you do not have a government-issued photo ID, you may instead submit copies of two other identification documents (Ex. birth certificate, school or work ID, library card, utility bill).
If you choose to submit two other identification documents instead of a government issued photo ID, combined they must show your full name, birthday, and identification photo. Both must also have been issued by a respected formal institution (Ex. business, school, university).
-Be sure to black out any personal information that we don’t need to verify your identity.
-If possible, please save each copy as a JPEG file.
-Please make sure that your name, date of birth, and photo are all clearly visible. For best results when taking a photo, lay the document on a flat, stable surface in a well-lit room. Use natural or indirect lighting to reduce glare.
Once we receive a clear image of your identification, we will reevaluate the status of your account. We will permanently delete your attached identification document from our servers after we resolve your issue.
Please note that we will not review your request until we receive your documentation per this request.
Thanks,
Holly
User Operations—–Original Message to Facebook—–
From: John Olaoluwa (******@gmail.com)
To: The Facebook Team
Subject: Re: Disabled Account Appeal – ID RequestHi,
Thanks for you contact.
I have attached a proof of my ID to this email reply.
Proof of ID shows my business bank card, personal bank card and the area I
live in the UK, these all show my name.My photos can be seen at my Facebook photos folder (full length), personal
website (blog – www.brotherjohn.org), twitter (
https://twitter.com/brotherjohnorg), Google and LinkedIn Accounts. Best regards,
John Olaoluwa
www.brotherjohn.org
1 Corinthians 2:14On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 3:32 PM, The Facebook Team <
> wrote:> Hi,
>
> Thanks for your patience. Due to high contact rates, we haven’t been able
> to investigate your report yet.
>
> If you’ve resolved the issue you first contacted us about, you can ignore
> this email. If you still need help, please reply to this email so we can
> assist you. Please attach any documentation you provided with your original
> report to your reply.
>
> We’ll review your report once we receive your reply. In the meantime, you
> can find answers to many common questions in our Help Center:
>
> https://www.facebook.com/help
>
> Thanks,
> The Facebook Team
Here are some excerpts sent to me by friends who have started a protest group (http://www.facebook.com/groups/295121103930421/) at my treatment:
“John Olaoluwa has been banned from Facebook because he was reported to Facebook by someone in the Muslim faith. His account needs to restored totally and immediately! Please pass this around!” – Mark Fonner
“Sad to day this will become the norm. The true Christians that stand for the Gospel of Christ will be labled the outsiders, the haters, the one’s not conforming , and this is why they will be killed for the sake of world peace and security…peace and safety.” – Kathy Cavanaugh
“I had been looking for brother John!” – Aaron Seal
“This may sound strange but… Tell John that this is a blessing; for all that he did, for all the times he was shouting and proclaiming the gospel, this is what he suffers… being banned from facebook. …. Lol, the early martyrs of the Church would be laughing at us if they see us now.” – Kalis Morgan
“This is yet another example of religious intolerance of Christianity and Judaism! Yet nothing NOTHING is done to the Muslims who terrorize our world. How anyone can see the Mulsim “faith” as being anything but wrong is beyond me. …. Shame on FaceBook.” – Cindy Hurrelbrink Peak
“John Olaoluwa has been banned from Facebook because he was reported to Facebook by someone in the Muslim faith. His account needs to restored totally and immediately! Please pass this around” – Delores Boriska
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“Oh my goodness… I had no idea, thank you Dee..I will pray for him, this is sad for him, he loves the Lord so much and is such an outstanding spokesperson in the Spirit for the Lord. Thank you.” – Susan Holton
“I first met brother John through a Facebook group, we quickly became friends and he advised me on messianic issues but I rebelled against him because I was involved in a more messianic fellowship rather than Christian, but he never judged me or removed me from his friends list we even spoke on the phone and prayed together over the phone, brother John even spent the time to advise me on personal issues, I particularly remember one thing he said to me ‘I will keep praying for you and I will not relent’, this was about two years ago now, our fellowship had a Facebook group ‘house churches uk’ and I invited John to it and he (in my eyes) had a positive impact but my pastor kicked him out because he did not agree with him and the two fell out but he never fell out with me, fast forward one year and I have now left this house church because I started looking for answers myself which matched up with what brother John said in the first place, now I know I’m a Christian as part of a big family not as a select few that God has called out of the church because they are all lost as the messianic teachings I was taught said, what I’m trying to say is that brother John has helped me in a big way because its not easy leaving teachings about ‘churches’ which state ‘have nothing to do with them’ and then become part of a church because you can’t think straight and start to doubt what is right from wrong, but John IS a true man of God, a warrior infact ready to defend truth from satans tricks and lies! I’m now searching for a biblical Christian church for me and my family to get involved in and God had told me to start a theology degree straight after Christmas, this is still a hard time for me and my wife but God is faithful and will lead and guide us into HIS truth, I wanted to share this as a testimony to brother John out of respect and love, give him his account back Facebook this man is being used by God not just in showing Jesus to Muslims but to lots of people!!” – Neil Burton
“It seems as though Facebook is targeting Christians. Which of us will be next? Let’s speak out against this persecution NOW….. This is a man who for the past several years has made a positive impact in the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of people and he has been treated unfairly because he had the boldness to share his faith. How many walls have we visited on FB and seen porn and obscenities and all manner of atrocities? But FB chose to single out a man who is doing good in this wicked world? Enough is enough! Bring John Olaolawa back now!!!” – Ingrid Brunton
Reading these testimonies truly humbles me. It makes me desire the Kingdom more and Jesus encourages us:
Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” [Luke 12:32]
As at the writing of this post, I am informed that the group has crossed the 500 people mark. This is not just about me any more, it is about Facebook being hypocritical and behaving like the tyrannical leader of a nation. It was reported recently that Facebook now has over 1 billion registered users, that is bigger than some continents! But using that weight against individuals just because of the terrible tantrum and opinion of a religious bigot is like vinegar to the teeth.
Do I care about Facebook? No! I care about nothing this world offers! Do I care about Mark Zuckerberg? Yes, more than you can imagine! Do I care about my Facebook account? No! Do I care about my Facebook friends? Yes, and I do miss them (by not being there to share with and learn from them). Do I care about Muslims? Yes, and I do miss sharing the Word of God with them. So, with or without Facebook, I will continue to share the Gospel. We have a prayer group that prays ceaselessly for Muslims out of genuine love and NOTHING is going to stop or change that!
Why? I remember the case of a lady Tammy Zhand (not real name) from Malaysia in 2011, who contacted me just as she was about to commit suicide and unusually I had my Facebook chat on that day. I was there with her for HOURS, leaving my work to attend to her and prayerfully got her off the act, to this day, I thank God that she listened to me and now, she has a new lease of life. Or should I mention the case of several who have been in some dire situations and somehow contacted me for advice or prayers?
No I am not and will not claim to be their Saviour because we are all in the same boat in the sea of life, but as friends, we do encourage and share our experiences with one another on a platform that claims to be free and fair, but with current experience, I very much doubt its validity.
Facebook may have disabled my account at their website, thank God that they do not hold my life in their hands!”