Facebook glitch accidentally shuts down Freemason groups. Cause so far unknown.

Menlo Park, CA -- In a move that surprised literally hundreds of Freemasons all around the globe, Facebook temporarily shut down several dozen of the largest Masonic themed discussion groups, including Freemasonary, Some Things Masonic, Wide World of Masons, and The Windy Steps.

"I was responding to a comment from a brother who claimed that there wasn't a proper way to wear a ring," said WB Gregg Atrium, a frequent visitor to Wide World of Masons. "I had just hit the Enter key to send my response that he was actually in error, when the whole browser window went gray. I refreshed, and I couldn't find the group anymore. I finally had to go argue with people on one of the political groups."

Facebook Illuminati symbol

Facebook officials re-approved the Masonic groups, and explained that the issue had been due to a programming error. The Past Bastard contacted a senior administrator to learn more.

"For the last couple of months, we have been seeing a huge spike in 'Illuminati' scams," said Kathrine Ballou,, senior programmer at Facebook. "Because of the huge increase in reports, we decided to introduce some programming algorithms to weed out the scammers. The issue seemed to have happened because of the parameters of the algorithms."

The Past Bastard asked Ms Ballou if she could clarify what she meant.

"Well, we noticed that in many of the reports, we saw comments from men -- it was almost always men -- who sent in money to these Illuminati groups in hopes of gaining enlightenment, and to make contacts with other enlightened men. The complaints were usually that they sent in money, and then never made any contacts, nor, obviously, did they get any enlightenment." She added, "Unless you count how much lighter their wallets got."

Facebook set the parameters of their algorithms to shut down any groups in which members were complaining about having paid for enlightenment, and not having received anything in return, she said.

"For reasons that aren't clear to me, probably because I'm not one of those Freemason types, our algorithms found something in the Freemasonry groups that were similar enough to the Illuminati scams. I'm at a loss to explain it, but we hope to fine tune the parameters to keep it from happening again."

Ms Ballou then asked if we could provide any insight as to why the Illuminati parameters might have caused the Freemason groups to be shut down. "You guys talk about getting light all the time, right? Is it something to do with that? The Freemasons certainly wouldn't be scamming their members, would they?"

The Past Bastard declined to answer.