UPDATE: Heather Cox Richardson's Missing Posts Have Reappeared on Facebook

This was only a drill. What will you do the next time information, access or connectivity disappears? How would we communicate and organize in an analog world?

Hand drawing an algorithm, courtesy of Shutterstock.

I wrote earlier this week about how some of U.S. historian Heather Cox Richardson’s posts had disappeared from Facebook. Even she could not see what she had posted. I’m not sure when they came back, but as of Friday afternoon (on April 4, 2025), I can see all of the posts that were previously absent.

I did not do anything to adjust my own Facebook settings. I did not block or re-set or whatever it is you can do, I didn’t even reboot my computer. In other words, nothing changed on my end. So something must have changed on Facebook’s end. Oddly enough, when I re-posted my blog about this on Facebook itself, one of my Facebook friends said he could see all of HCR’s posts, though many others said they could not. So … chalk this up to the magical “algorithm.”

The Magical Algorithm Isn’t Magic

For those of us who barely remember our high school math, the word “algorithm” sounds fancy and somewhat impenetrable — almost magical — even though the word is frequently thrown around in casual conversation. But it’s really quite simple. An algorithm is simply a procedure or set of rules used for performing a computation. According to Google, Facebook’s algorithm is “a system of rules and machine learning techniques that determines what content users see in their feeds, prioritizing posts, stories, and ads based on factors like user interactions, content type, and timeliness, aiming to create a personalized and engaging experience.”

So a tweak to Facebook’s algorithm could lead thousands, even millions, of Facebook users to lose access to HCR’s latest posts. (She has about three million followers on Facebook.) How personalized and engaging!

By the way, how would I have found that information about algorithms without Google?

The magical algorithm isn’t magic. It’s not even really about math. Math is just the vehicle, deployed in the service of control and power.

How Do You Organize in an Analog World?

As I write this on April 4, 2025, thousands of people across the United States are preparing to participate in “Hands Off!” anti-Trump protests across the United States tomorrow. These rallies have largely been organized online, with information about them spreading out to people via all of those virtual gathering places (like Facebook) people use to stay connected and keep informed.

Certainly, the large-scale demonstrations of the past (think civil rights marches, or anti-Vietnam war rallies) were planned and organized before people connected online. But if we lose the modern world’s online town squares, if we don’t have Facebook or Google or WhatsApp or TikTok or text messages — or if the information they contain is unreliable, because our oligarchic overlords have messed with the algorithm — do we still have the ability to connect, to share information, and to organize in real time, and IRL?

And I have to wonder: how many disenchanted Trump voters might have joined a “Hands Off!” rally but didn’t know about them in advance because carefully-calibrated algorithms kept the news out of their “personalized and engaging” online silos?

Make a Plan to Stay Connected “In Real Life”

I think we all need to make a plan for how to stay connected without access — or at least reliable access — to online social media platforms. It will not necessarily even be obvious when those platforms stop serving us. The powers that be don’t have to shut down the internet (or even TikTok!). They just need to tweak the algorithms in such a way that important information is no longer available. Wait a minute! That’s already happening, isn’t it?!

So is it too late?

I don’t think it is, but we need to be creative, even retrograde, in our approach. Talk to your friends and family and neighbors, and identify an accessible, nearby or centralized location where people can meet and converse and organize: a public library, a school, a local park, a neighborhood cafe. Then commit to finding each other in those spaces when needed. Real community cannot exist solely, or even primarily, in a virtual world.

This is not a drill.