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Fast Forward

Hebrew Anti-Gay Facebook Page Co-opted, Turned Into Pro-Gay Forum

A user on social networking site Facebook managed on Wednesday to hack into an anti-gay group on the popular site, and change it into a pro-gay forum complete with homoerotic photos and videos.

The original group, “I also hate gays” had attracted over a 150 users and a spawn of copycat groups after it was started days after a shooting at a Tel Aviv gay center that left two dead and over a dozen wounded.

The group had featured a manifesto calling on people to join “if you don’t care what happened on Saturday night, if you are tired of gay people talking about their sexual deviation” and saying its goal was to attract people looking to “shut-up Israel’s homosexual community” . In the hacked version of the group, the administrators have been removed, the new title says “I also love gays” and it features messages in the description that say: “This is fate” and “you idiots, you deserved me hacking into here”, an apparent message to the founders of the original group.

In addition to photos of muscular, shirtless men, the group also features a memorial video for Nir Katz, 26, who was murdered in last Saturday’s shooting.

Within minutes of the group being hacked, the Facebook member who founded the original, anti-gay version penned several comments to the group asking for members’ forgiveness and saying he started the group “in a moment of stupidity”.

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