Hundreds of Donald Trump supporters have unwittingly discovered themselves in a Fb group referred to as “Homosexual Communists for Socialism”, after being tricked by its creators into becoming a member of what they thought was a pro-Trump election group.
On Thursday, a Fb group referred to as “Cease the Steal”, a reference to the president’s false claims that Joe Biden is “stealing” the US election, was disabled by the social community for misinformation after gaining greater than 350,000 members. Different teams emerged as an alternative, together with a second “Cease the Steal” group that attracted greater than 40,000 castaways from the unique group.
However lower than 24 hours later, an administrator for the group modified its identify to “Homosexual Communists for Socialism” with out rationalization, confounding the brand new members.
Dozens of posts from offended and confused Trump supporters requested, “What occurred to cease the steal?” and, “Why is that this group referred to as homosexual communists for socialism?”, whereas others demanded, “Get me off this web page!!!!!!”
The Guardian confirmed the group was created on 5 November as “Cease the Steal” earlier than being renamed. One administrator, whose actual id couldn’t be verified, instructed the Guardian the group was a deliberate operation to troll conservatives with a pretend “Cease the Steal” group.
“We had no thought it might take off like this or suck in as many clueless folks because it did after we made the swap,” the administrator stated. He stated the group, which now has 60,000 members, has an extra 20,000 member requests.
One other group administrator additional trolled its members by telling them the identify change had been achieved to maintain Facebook from cracking down on it, and later stated the group could have been hacked by Facebook itself. “We’ve been on the telephone and messaging with Facebook making an attempt to unravel this” – a transparent joke, as Facebook doesn’t have a public customer support telephone quantity.
Most of the members nonetheless seem to consider the group identify has been modified to keep away from censorship by Fb and that it stays true to the unique conservative mission. “Nonetheless the identical folks, the identical message, we simply have to enter hiding as a result of free speech isn’t a factor below Fb,” one wrote.
The administrator instructed the Guardian it was probably the group would quickly be eliminated as a result of variety of folks within the group reporting content material they’re offended by. These reviews, he stated, are principally coming from conservatives. “The actual snowflakes,” he stated.
Julia Carrie Wong contributed reporting
