How to defeat the content-hiding algorithms

Tips for stopping social media algorithms from hiding the content of the pages you like

Over the last few years the Facebook algorithm has been hiding Another Angry Voice posts from ever more people, to such an extent that the vast majority of the 388,000 people who follow the page never see a post from one month to the next.

My stats are way down on where they were despite my follower count still growing, my posts never go mega-viral like they used to on a regular basis (10k+ likes and shares), and when I post links to my blog these days, the algorithm makes them even more invisible than my infographics and Facebook essays.

I’m not alone in having seen the Facebook algorithm annihilate my ability to reach my audience on there. Other left-leaning independent media pages like Evolve Politics, Council Estate Media, and Vox Political have all experienced the same.

In fact Facebook have been absolutely open about their drive to reduce the visibility of news and political content on their platform.

Meanwhile on Twitter something similar is going on, with Elon Musk prioritising the content of paid blue ticks, many of them newly-created troll accounts, radical-right grifters, drop-ship profiteers, racists, and crypo scammers.

It seems like an appalling business decision to artificially boost a load of terrible content because they’re paying you $8 a month, and to throttle the reach of quality content from established creators on your platform because they don’t, but then ‘Musk is a genius’, as his legion of blue tick weirdos will keep telling you.

Both Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have come to the same conclusion that “censorship = profit” but from different perspectives.

Zuckerberg’s main priorities are gorging on Facebook’s £billions in advertising revenue, and incentivising news outlets and political organisations into buying Facebook ads to promote their content, so he doesn’t want viral posts from independent media pages filling people’s feeds, especially if they’re directing traffic away from Facebook.

Musk seems to think he can spin a profit by bullying established Twitter users into subscribing by de-prioritising their content if they don’t.

So for their own reasons both Facebook and Twitter are intent on creating walls between content creators and their audiences via their content-hiding algorithms, so in light of this, here are seven tips for making sure you still see content from Another Angry Voice (many of these tips apply for your other favourite left-leaning alternative media sources too).

1. Diversify: Probably the most important tip of all is to follow your favourite alternative media sources on more than one platform. The best place to follow AAV is here on Substack, where there is no content-hiding algorithm to arbitrarily stop you seeing my posts. If you follow me here you will always receive notifications whenever I post an essay.

I’m mainly active on Facebook where I have by far the most followers, but I also post to different extents on Twitter, Blogger, and Instagram. I’m also hoping to start doing more multimedia content on Youtube at some point soon, so it might be worth following me there too.

2. Interact: If you want to keep seeing my posts on Facebook, probably the most important bit of advice is to regularly interact (like, comment, share). The more you do this, the more you'll be shown that page’s content in your Facebook feed. Even if it's just hitting the "like" button or leaving a short comment on each post you see from them, this prioritises the page in your feed (I absolutely guarantee that no page owner is going to be annoyed at likes and/or short replies).

The same goes for Twitter (like, comment, retweet) when you see posts, because if you just scroll past, you’re probably going to stop seeing them fairly soon.

3. Prioritise: Go into the "follow settings" on the Another Angry Voice Facebook page, and set it as one of your "favourites". This doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to see all the AAV Facebook posts, but it does mean you'll be much more likely to see AAV content than if you don’t do it.

4. Weed: One very simple trick to improve your Facebook/Twitter feed is to weed the accounts that you follow. Go to your follow list and unfollow anything you’re not interested in any more. If you can get your follow list down to the main things you’re really genuinely interested in, the algorithm will be much more likely to keep showing you the posts you actually want to see.

5. Bookmark: Save the Another Angry Voice Facebook page as a bookmark in your usual web browser, and check in on it every now, to see what the Facebook algorithm hasn't been showing you.

6. Backup: Follow the dormant AAV backup page Yet Another Angry Voice, which exists in case something happens to the main page.

7. Upgrade: Install the Facebook Purity add-on to your web browser. Then select the setting that over-rides the Facebook algorithm and allows you to see your news feed in chronological order. FB Purity is a truly excellent add-on, which dramatically upgrades the whole Facebook experience in multiple ways. There are a few other downloads that allow you to see your Facebook feed in chronological order too: Social Fixer is a browser add-on, and Friendly Browser is an app that works on mobile devices.

I hope you find these tips helpful.

If you have any other tips for defeating social media content-hiding algorithms, please leave a comment in the replies.

Thanks, Tom (AAV)