Stills from our Instagram video that used what we learned to triumph over the social media algorithm.
It’s not news that social media is an odd beast. Any time we’re using a “free” platform, we are the product. Big tech companies profit off the ads they show you which means they want you to keep doomscrolling as long as possible so they can feed you even more ads (and hopefully you’ll cave and buy something). At the same time, social media is where many of us connect with our friends and family. With the rise of denouncing our free press as “fake news” and the lack of coverage mainstream media gives to important civil rights issues, more and more people are also turning to social media for news. The thing is, while you may still technically have free speech on the Internet, BigTech™ controls your content and holds the key to censorship.
You may have heard that on the No Kings: Vote Early national day of action on October 17, 2026, META shut down the Instagram account for @nokingscoalition. META, who own Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, took the account down at 1:30pm—just as actions were heating up across the country. It took several hours for the account to be reactivated and several more before admins regained access and were able to post. META has given two conflicting excuses as to why this happened, but the reality is that these tech behemoths have far too much control over the narrative and are actively trying to silence our voices.
This isn’t new. Anyone who frequents apps like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram have been using methods of subversion to get around the algorithm suppression. When you hear “grape” instead of “rape,” “PDF Files” instead of “pedophiles,” or stories about “#cutewinterboots” instead of “ice abductions,” people aren’t trying to be cute. These are the stupid games we have to play to beat the bots.
Something else happened the afternoon of No Kings: Vote Early. Creators across Instagram suddenly saw their numbers tank, especially if they mentioned the words “vote,” “voting,” or “elections.” Our account, @mass50501, saw a 60-80% drop in traffic, which is consistent amongst other accounts promoting voting rights. The suppression isn’t just for videos reminding people to go vote—it’s on all videos from those accounts. As an example, look at the stats on this post promoting No Kings: Vote Early Boston vs. the recap post. Even stories about local unlawful ICE kidnappings, which usually surge, are being suppressed.
Instagram metrics showing decreased traffic the afternoon of No Kings 4.
So, what can we do? Well, we got a little creative. With some paper, pens, and furry friends, we found a way to break through. Using coded language and subversion has been a tactic for resistance movements throughout the ages. While it is incredibly annoying and stupid that we have to do it in 2026 to get around tech conglomerates, this is where we’re at. As an educator, I grabbed a flip board from my garage and wrote out the words META is suppressing instead of speaking them. My kitty decided to jump on the papers afterwards, creating footage to tease viewers with: “There’s a cat at the end of this video.” This gave Elmo “there’s a monster at the end of this book” vibes while throwing back to the days of “I Can Has Cheezburger?” Welp, it worked. But, why did it work?
I have a few hypotheses. First off, the promise of a cat at the end—one of the ways to boost the algorithm is to watch a video until the end. The other ways are to make a long comment, save, repost, share, and subscribe. We put a call to action for all of the above and viewers understood the assignment and interacted! Any words that are known for triggering suppression were written instead of spoken in the reel. This won’t always work, since some social media apps, like TikTok, use AI moderation that reviews the visual content of videos. Most BigTech™ social media platforms use AI to review speech, captions, and the visual content of static images, but the extra energy and resources needed to review visual content in videos is often not worth the cost—at least right now. TikTok, however, has practically been a state-run app since the U.S. company Oracle took it over. It is heavily moderated, as you can see by this bogus warning we received on our cute dog video:
A warning from TikTok for our dog video.
I have one more hypothesis on why our initial algorithm-busting video did so well, and it was completely unintentional. Check out our current stats for that video:
Metrics for our Instagram video that unintentionally had higher views than expected.
Do you see how the views count and the viewers count are so far off? Well, one of the ways a video does well is when people watch it over and over again. In my haste to make the reel, I used the supplies I had on hand, and that meant thin markers on big paper being held up in the sunlight. Some viewers found it difficult to read. This created unintentional frustration, and it also got people to watch the video again and again, which fed the algorithm and pushed the video to more and more people. Did I consider making the text hard to read in my subsequent videos? Yes, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it because I’m not actually a jerk.
We may be the first generation who started a revolution on pocket-sized screens, but we are joining a long history of underdogs using subversion to get a message to the masses. I wish we could speak plainly, but for now we’ll talk about “boating” instead of “voting.” We’ll use furry friends and other gimmicks to get attention. We’ll use AI-proof fonts that mean you have to pause a video to read but at least you’ll get the message.
If you are on the other side of the screen, we need your help. Please engage with content like ours. Hit all the buttons, write a long comment, send it to your friends. There may be more times when accounts go dark on Instagram, TikTok, X, and other large tech platforms. Make sure you are on alternate platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon so you can stay in the know with what BigTech™ doesn’t want you to know. You can find us on both platforms @mass50501.
Want to see some cute cat videos? Here are our latest three on Instagram. You can also find them on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, and Mastadon, all under @mass50501. Phew!
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