11/18/11

When You Type @+[251859230739:0] on Facebook It Turns Into "I’m Gay"

Here's something strange. When you type in @+[251859230739:0] on Facebook, the characters transform and become "I'm gay" once you post it. What in the world? What's going on?

MSNBC noted this little exploit and discovered the reason behind it. Here's how it would work on Facebook. First, instructions like this would pop up on your friend's wall:

‎1. Copy this: @+[251859230739:0]
 2. Paste it as a comment below.
 3. Delete the "+" sign.
 4. Press "Enter."

And then people would blindly follow it and suddenly see "I'm Gay" attached to their posted comment. Har har. Is this some sort of sick joke? Pretty much.

The reason this is happening is because the number string within the brackets is actually the id for a Facebook page. So in the case of "I'm Gay", the 251859230739 is in reference to the actual I'm Gay Facebook page. It reads the numbers as the title of the page and flips your string into words. It's like the backend of when you tag someone. And with this trick, you can basically make anybody say anything as long as there's a Facebook page for it (and if they're sucker enough to fall for it). Just replace '251859230739' with whatever number string that identifies the title you'd want to use and you control their Facebook.

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