Trump supporters tricked into joining ‘Gay Communists for Socialism’ on Facebook
Users initially thought they were joining group dedicated to baseless claims Democrats had ‘stolen’ election
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Thousands of Donald Trump supporters have been fooled by a Facebook page named ‘Gay Communists for Socialism’ they thought promoted baseless claims about a “stolen” election.
The page, originally titled “Stop the Steal”, appeared to support the president’s baseless claims that Democrats would “steal” the election.
But, in a surprise move, an administrator on the Facebook page amended the name to “Gay Communists for Socialism”.
The Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, and former president Barack Obama, were also pictured on the page running with Pride flags.
Some 64,000 Trump-supporters then woke up on Friday to discover they belonged to the “Gay Communists for Socialism” page, and were outraged.
One person complained that the name should be changed back to “Stop the Steal”, according to screenshots shared online, while another asked: “Have we been hacked?”
The page was among a number of splinter groups that were created after a group with more than 350,000 members, also called “Stop the Steal”, was disabled by Facebook on Thursday.
In a statement, Facebook said “The group was organised around the delegitimisation of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group.”
It is possible that the “Gay Communists for Socialism” page had attracted some members from the first “Stop the Steal” group.
One administrator, who remained anonymous, confirmed to The Guardian that the fake “Stop the Steal” group was set-up to troll Trump supporters.
“We had no idea it would take off like this or suck in as many clueless people as it did when we made the switch,” he said, adding that those who complained about the name change were “the real snowflakes”.
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