On Facebook

I can't take it anymore

I’m not sure what to consider this post, just an extra little thing I suppose. My regular post will go out at 3:00 AM tomorrow morning, as scheduled. It will be an exploration about positivity within Freemasonry, and the dangers that might be posed by an excess of it.

That out of the way, let’s get on with this extra and off topic post.

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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

For as long as I’ve been a Freemason, I’ve been using Facebook, and through the years I’ve amassed a very good following of Freemasons there.

But, I can’t take it anymore. I’m out of there. From now on, to find me, you’ll have to find me here on Substack.

This isn’t an out of the blue decision for me. I’ve been using it less and less over the past couple of years, but this morning when signing on, I encountered the straw that finally broke the camel’s back as the old saying goes.

Here are the problems, these are the things that have driven me away from Facebook:

1. Facebook allows scammers to use my name, and my own photographs on fake profiles that exist to commit financial fraud on unsuspecting people.

‘Become A Mason’ ‘Join The Illuminati’ Whatever, just send a few bucks through some app or another and you’ll be in.

Whenever I encounter these things (I encountered yet another one this morning, using my words, and my copyrighted images) I report them, and I know that lots of other Brothers report them.

But, Facebook is extremely slow at taking action, when it takes any action at all. Generally getting them to act requires the generation of a large number of complaints. Ultimately, Facebook allows these scams to exist across its platform, scams that financially harm well meaning people.

And it’s not just me. This happens to lots and lots of higher profile Masons, including quite a number of Past Grand Masters of my Jurisdiction. And it happens to Grand Lodges themselves. We have fake Facebook profiles out there purporting to be legitimate, regular, Grand Lodges. Stealing and using the copyrighted content owned by those Grand Lodges. Facebook chooses not to act.

And it happens to lots and lots of lower profile Masons as well. Often in these schemes the ‘Mason is suddenly moving across the country’ and needs to sell all of his really good stuff, really cheap. ‘Just send a deposit via an app’ please.

The scams are really bad, and Facebook does not seem interested in cleaning it up. That is one of the reasons I am leaving Facebook.

2. Facebook artificially limits the reach of my Lodge.

The Lodge in my hometown has, for a great many years, worked to maintain an active and interesting Facebook page for itself.

And for years, that worked great. It basically served as a communications hub for our membership.

Someone from the Lodge would post about an upcoming event, all of our members would receive that post in their news feeds, and they would have the details they needed to show up. It was a superb reminder for those of us who might be on the disorganized side of life.

But, not anymore.

Now we can’t even consistently reach our own members with posts made on the page. The last post we made, two days ago, was only shown by Facebook’s algorithm to 28 people. This on a page at which roughly 1,400 people have signed up to receive the post.

Not to worry, after virtually every post Facebook reminds my Lodge that they would show it to around 2,500 people, if only we would send Facebook $42.

I have to believe that every Lodge is facing these same artificial headwinds, and these same requests for money just to get the posts out to Lodge members.

There is no point in spending time and energy on a Lodge Facebook page if the posts made on it aren’t being seen by anyone. If we hope to advertise our Lodge, and pay to do so, that is something different, and is probably a good way to go about it. But Facebook no longer works for Lodge internal communications.

This is the second reason I’m leaving Facebook. Because it has enshittified itself.

3. Facebook engages in unreasonable censorship and lies about it.

I believe that platforms, like Facebook have a right to decide what appears on the sites that they own. Indeed, I have content guidelines right here on Emeth that I enforce. You can read those here.

I also do not believe that anyone should be relying entirely on Social Media for their news. But, many people, millions of people, clearly do just that. So, large platforms, like Facebook have a moral responsibility to be honest.

And Facebook is not. It cannot be trusted.

I will use a single, recent example to make this point. If you want to read about what happened elsewhere, you can find lots of articles, including here.

In a nutshell, as we all know, President Trump was recently shot in a failed assassination attempt. And a news photographer captured a really iconic image of him and the brave men and women of the Secret Service who risked their lives to protect him in the moments following that attempt.

For days, Facebook censored that photograph, claiming that ‘independent fact checkers’ deemed it to be misinformation. Facebook also threatened people who tried to share that photo on their own news feeds, reminding them of the possible consequences of posting ‘misinformation.’

The thing is, quite literally everyone in the United States who gets their news anywhere other than Facebook knew that the photo was real. It was all over the television, in newspapers, quite literally everywhere.

But, Facebook alone told people that the photo was fake. And those millions of people who only get their news from Facebook would have no reason at all to doubt it.

Eventually Facebook stopped censoring the photograph, and claimed that the whole thing was a ‘mistake.’

Undoubtedly moderating something as massive as Facebook would be a shockingly huge job. But Meta is a shockingly huge and shockingly rich corporation. They need to do their job, and do not have an excuse for not doing their job properly. They failed in this case, as they have failed in so many previous cases. And no one has been held to account for any of these failures.

The fact that Facebook engages in unreasonable censorship, based upon lies is the third reason I’m leaving Facebook.

4. The straw that finally broke the camel’s back.

Late yesterday afternoon I posted a bad review about a company operating in my hometown. I’d reached out to the company first, but had not received a response, so I wrote and posted the review. The review did not seek information from anyone, it simply explained my own experience with the company. I tagged both the company, and my local Police Department in the post.

Sometime last night, Facebook removed my post.

Facebook claimed that it made that decision because the post was an attempt to ask people for their personal information. That it was a scam.

The post was neither of those things. It didn’t ask for information about anything from anyone. There was no request of any kind for anything at all. Nor was it a scam. It was a simple recounting of an experience I had with a company doing business in my little City. Indeed, as mentioned above, I intentionally tagged my local Police Department in the post. Certainly not something anyone running a scam would do.

I’ve appealed the decision Facebook made. Who knows how that will go. Probably no better than when I report to Facebook actual scammers who have stolen my copyrighted photographs and other intellectual property.

But, this was it for me.

I thought that the post could be helpful for my neighbors in the area. We should know who we do business with, the good and the bad. But, Facebook declared it a scam. Honestly, it makes me wonder if the company advertises on Facebook or something and complained about the post.

But, whatever it was, whatever motivated Facebook was wrong, and their decision was wholly improper.

This is what has finally driven me from Facebook.

Moving forward, you can find me on Substack exclusively.

The app linked just above might be a good way to do that.

And of course, on the web.

In addition to the posts and discussions that come to you in email, you can always find everything at:

I try to post interesting things, and Masonic news in the Chat, almost daily. You can find that at:

I post all kinds of stuff, covering a really wide range of topics over at Substack’s own version of Social Media, called Notes. You can find that at:

Notes

I’m not sure why the Substack people don’t give Notes a cool button! It’s a good place, sort of like Twitter, but with much less drama and fight.

I keep my upcoming Masonic schedule at:

Happenings

Lastly, you can always find all of my stuff updated automatically on my Linky Thingy:

But, moving forward, please don’t try to contact me on Facebook. I won’t be around there anymore.

If you are remaining on Facebook, I do ask that you consider sharing my posts there, as I’ll not be able to do that moving forward. All you have to do in order to share is hit the little ‘share’ button included in all of my posts. It looks like this:

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

I am sorry to have to cut off a communication channel with so many Freemasons, but I can’t continue to allow Facebook to profit off of the content and attention I provide to it.

I believe Substack, including Chat and Notes is a far superior platform. I hope that you will follow me here.