'Valentine’s Day Cat Punching' page taken off Facebook after petitions

Event seems to have been set up by notorious internet troll

A Facebook page encouraging visitors to punch cats to mark Valentines Day has been removed, after thousands of users signed a petition calling on Facebook to remove it.

The site showed a picture of a man threatening a cat and asked users to join in the activity on February 14.

But after over 20,000 people signed the petition, Facebook removed the page.

It is unknown who set up the event, but its anonymous administrator identified themselves as “Jamie Card”. That name was used by another troll who took over a mother’s Facebook page in 2013 and posed as her to attempt to sell her children.

The posts were accompanied by pictures of abused cats and messages encouraging users to attack them.

“I prefer the full grown cats, honestly,” the page’s administrator said. “The little ones can’t take a punch to save their lives. It’s pathetic.”

In apparent response to some users suggesting that the photo showing someone threatening a cat was taken from Google, the administrator of the page posted a new photo. That showed a cat being held by its neck and threatened with a punch, along with a sign saying “Jamie Card”. “Bet you non-believers can’t find this on Google,” the picture’s caption said.