Hey gang. You hear me say it all the time: like, share, subscribe, and bookmark.
That last word matters more than you might think.
A like is supposed to help the algorithm notice us. A share gets our work in front of the people who follow you. A subscription should let you know when we go live. In theory, those things help connect the people making the programming with the people who actually want it.
But what happens when that connection disappears?
Imagine spending months organizing a political event, building an audience, and getting people ready to participate. Then, on the very day you need to reach them, your account goes dark. You can still have something important to say. Your audience can still want to hear it. The company standing between you has decided, or its system has decided, that the conversation stops.
That is what got my attention for this episode of Up the Middle. And yes, it includes my own frustration with getting Mastiff.Media programming in front of people. But the consequences reach well beyond whether somebody sees my latest show.
When the account comes back, the moment may already be gone
The No Kings Coalition lost access to its Instagram account during its October 17 organizing activities. Meta said the suspension was an error involving automated security systems. Its explanation pointed to activity resembling bot traffic. The page returned, but organizers said their administrative access remained restricted for longer. The reporting on that explanation and the continuing lockout is worth reading.
Think about what that means when people are already out there participating. Restoring the page later does not give organizers back the time when they needed to communicate. An apology does not deliver the updates that never reached their audience.
Here in Florida, Angie Nixon raised a similar concern when the Instagram account for her Latino outreach effort, Latinos Con Angie, was suspended while her campaign was posting from a voter rally. Nixon asked Meta to restore the account and explain the removal. Whatever you think of her politics, losing an outreach channel during a get-out-the-vote event deserves a clear answer.
Then there is the account promoting Alex Gibney’s documentary Musk. It was suspended as the film was expanding its theatrical release. There is an important update to the example I discussed on the show: TikTok subsequently said the account had been restored following an error.
Good. Correcting a mistake matters. So does explaining how it happened, especially when the interruption lands at the moment a campaign, an organizer, or a filmmaker needs to reach people.
“The system did it” still leaves somebody responsible
I understand why platforms want to stop spam and automated manipulation. Nobody needs a network of fake accounts drowning out actual people.
The problem comes when legitimate activity gets caught in those defenses. Organizers want people posting, sharing, and responding. A successful event can produce a lot of activity in a short period. Platforms have to explain how they distinguish participation from manipulation, and how they correct a mistake before the damage is done.
If a security system shuts down a legitimate account at the worst possible time, telling the owner that it was automated does not finish the conversation. Who reviews that decision? How quickly can a real person help? What can the account owner do while the event is still happening?
Those are reasonable questions. People should not have to turn their suspension into a news story just to get an answer.
The timing of these incidents makes me suspicious. I am also not going to pretend that suspicion proves someone deliberately ordered a political takedown. We need explanations we can examine, rather than another round of everybody choosing the explanation that suits their preferred party.
We can support moderation and still demand answers
I made this distinction on the show, and it matters here too. I supported suspending Donald Trump over his conduct surrounding January 6. Facebook publicly explained its action, referred the case to its Oversight Board, and later set out a two-year suspension and the reasoning behind it.
You can disagree with that decision. I think it was justified. Either way, a deliberate decision with a stated basis can be examined and challenged. That is a different situation from an account owner trying to find out why a security system suddenly locked the door.
I want rules people can understand, enforcement people can question, and an appeals process that works while the answer still matters.
Conservatives have complained about censorship and shadow banning for years. Progressives and grassroots organizers are raising their own concerns. The details of each case need scrutiny. The larger question should interest everybody: how much control have we handed these companies over who gets heard?
A post can stay online and still struggle to reach you
Account suspensions are only part of this. Recommendation systems help decide which conversations people encounter in the first place.
In the episode, I discussed Meta’s move away from recommending political content. That policy has also changed. In January 2025, Meta announced a more personalized approach and said it would recommend more political content based on users’ signals. Its earlier approach should not be treated as a permanent description of what every feed does today.
But the underlying concern remains. The company chooses how discovery works. Creators and audiences are left trying to work out why something did or did not appear.
I can tell you that getting our programming to the people who want it has been frustrating. That experience alone cannot tell me exactly what an algorithm is doing or why. It certainly gives me a reason to make sure you have another way to find us.
Our name is our address
That brings me back to bookmarking.
Robbins 8th & Walnut and Acquisition.com both influenced that thinking: make the name tell people where to find you.
Mastiff.Media is our name, and Mastiff.Media is where you can find us. Save it. When you realize you have not seen a show in your feed, you can come directly to the website.
I want people to encounter more than one political perspective. On this episode, I talked about Amber May, who is very much on the right. I thought her campaign-finance article was fair, even though her framing and mine are not always going to agree. I offered to share it. That is part of what I mean when I call Up the Middle “politics for the rest of us.”
A conversation worth having should be able to survive disagreement. It should also have a way to survive an account restriction or a change in the feed.
So share the work you think people should see. Subscribe where you listen. Use more than one platform, and keep a direct link to the people whose work you value. I have also talked about my support for Haven Social; you can find information through our sponsors page. Any alternative still deserves the same questions about its rules, reliability, and accountability.
This applies to whoever your preferred commentator happens to be. Do your homework. Read beyond the label. And keep asking who controls the connection between a speaker and an audience.
Like. Share. Subscribe. Bookmark. Tell a friend!
Thanks for getting off the porch and running with the big dogs.