Trust

Let's get it back

I think that we are probably all quite familiar with the scams that take place on Facebook and even in email now.

Photo by Zanyar Ibrahim on Unsplash

Someone sets up a fake Facebook page, for example, claiming to be me, using my words and photographs, then starts asking people for money. This has, I think happened to all of our Grand Masters who are active on Facebook, and loads of other prominent Masons.

We also see similar fake Facebook pages set up spoofing legitimate Grand Lodges, with the same intent to defraud. I myself was embarrassed not too long ago when I started ‘liking’ and ‘sharing’ posts from a sister Grand Lodge, when it turned out that the page I was following was fake. Another scam.

We’ve seen them do this with actual websites too. Fake Grand Lodge of Washington websites. Fake Grand Lodge websites for lots of Jurisdictions.

And they do it via email. Somehow they spoof an email address, and gather an email list. I’ve received lots and lots of emails through the years from our various Grand Masters, always in trouble in some foreign country, and always needing just a few bucks to get safely home.

Our Grand Secretary sends notice to our entire membership whenever he encounters one of these.

It is all very disheartening.

And, it’s about to get worse.

This week, I read this from The Bone Writer:

LIVE Webcam Deepfakes Are HERE

And I watched the video he included.

Scary stuff.

Apparently now the scammers can make themselves look like anyone, and jump on a zoom call.

Imagine receiving a message from your DDGM asking you to jump on zoom, or some other video conferencing platform. You do, and he explains his predicament, asking to borrow a few bucks for a day or two in order to address an emergency.

Would you send it?

We all might. If the scam was slick enough.

We knew already that scammers could do this with voices.

The thing is, all of this is illegal.

It is not legal for a scammer to use my words in his scam, because I hold the copyright to them. The same with photographs. The same with written and photographic materials created by our Grand Lodges. Everything we create is protected by the laws of copyright.

And online platforms have a legal obligation to remove all content that violates copyright, and to do it quickly.

But as we all know, individuals complaining to Facebook doesn’t work.

What does work are attorneys following the proper steps under the law.

As The Magpie Mason has pointed out, our Grand Lodges can do this, and should do this. Please see his explanation of how they can clean this mess up here:

Memo To The Grand Masters

The time has come for us as Freemasons to stop tolerating these scams perpetrated in our name. These frauds are stealing money from innocent people, and trashing the name of Freemasonry in the process.

I probably won’t ever forget the phone call I received one day from a lady in Idaho when I was Grand Master.

She had discovered that her husband had been sending ‘Me’ a good deal of money they could ill afford, online, in order that he could be Made a Mason.

When she found out, she looked up our Grand Lodge on line, got my phone number and gave me a call. I was able to confirm for her that her husband had been scammed out of his money, and I was able to point her in the direction of a real Lodge in Idaho that he could visit to confirm his interest.

But how many don’t ever call anyone? How many just lose their money and decide that Freemasons are all crooks?

It’s a sad thing.

And, as it is about to get a lot worse, it is time for our Grand Lodges to band together to do what they can to solve it.