The Guardian interviews hoaxer Tom MacMaster:
Amy Davidson finds fault with his apologies. Meanwhile, MacMaster's actions are causing real damage in the propaganda war:
Syrian state TV aired a report on MacMaster's "lies." … "MacMaster's hoax aimed at enhancing continuous fabrications and lies against Syria in term (sic) of kidnapping bloggers and activists," a report on state-run news agency SANA said.
And the whole story is getting weirder:
[T]he editor of the lesbian news site Lez Get Real, with the tagline “A Gay Girl’s View on the World,” acknowledged that he is also a man. “Paula Brooks,” editor of Lez Get Real since its founding in 2008, is actually Bill Graber, 58, a retired Ohio military man and construction worker who said he had adopted his wife’s identity online. …
In the guise of Paula Brooks, Graber corresponded online with Tom MacMaster, thinking he was writing to Amina Arraf. Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian.
The Dish 