I am reposting this from a friend’s FB post. The original post was from the page Fear and Loathing:Closer to the Edge. This is a rather alarming development.
For those unfamiliar with her, Heather Cox Richardson writes daily synopsis’ of current events in her Letters From an American. She posts these on Substack, and also sends daily emails. I subscribed to her emails a few years ago. She interviewed President Biden in 2022 and 2024. She also has written a number of books including How the South Won the Civil War - Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America.
HCR: “Hi Folks: my two posts from last night have disappeared for many of us, including me and Buddy, but appear to be here for others. I’m trying to figure it out but if anyone has any ideas, do let me know in the comments. Eager to see if this post shows up.”
“OK, this is now gone for me, as well.”
Not flagged. Not disputed. Not taken down with explanation. Just gone — silently, and without warning. This is what erasure looks like in the age of algorithmic control.
I can also confirm not seeing any of her posts on FB for a few days now, after seeing them regularly in my feed. This is a critical time, and one of the disappeared posts had to do with SignalGate and had been shared 60,000 times when it just disappeared from her wall. This is some heavy censorship being done by the Billionaire Boys Club to try to protect their Master/investment. While the link to the post is above, here is a teaser …
Today, Wired reported that it had found four more Venmo accounts associated with the Trump administration officials who participated in the now-infamous Signal chat about a planned military attack on the Houthis in Yemen. A payment on one of them was identified only with an eggplant emoji, which is commonly used to suggest sexual activity.
The craziness going on around us in the first two months of the second Trump administration makes a lot more sense if you remember that the goal of those currently in power was never simply to change the policies or the personnel of the U.S. government. Their goal is to dismantle the central pillars of the United States of America—government, law, business, education, culture, and so on—because they believe the very shape of those institutions serves what they call “the Left.”
Their definition of “the Left” includes all Americans, Republicans and Independents as well as Democrats, who believe the government has a role to play in regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, promoting infrastructure, and protecting civil rights and who support the institutional structures Americans have built since World War II.
In place of those structures, today’s MAGA leaders intend to create their own new institutions, shaped by their own people, whose ideological purity trumps their abilities. As Vice President J.D. Vance explained in a 2021 interview, he and his ilk believe that American “conservatives…have lost every major powerful institution in the country, except for maybe churches and religious institutions, which of course are weaker now than they’ve ever been. We’ve lost big business. We’ve lost finance. We’ve lost the culture. We’ve lost the academy. And if we’re going to actually really effect real change in the country, it will require us completely replacing the existing ruling class with another ruling class…. I don’t think there’s sort of a compromise that we’re going to come with the people who currently actually control the country. Unless we overthrow them in some way, we’re going to keep losing.” “We really need to be really ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power,” he said. [emphasis mine]
On edit: I plan on posting her letters on FB daily, and encourage others to do the same. I remain there because it helps for organizing people and keeping stories alive.
UPDATE: Her posts have been showing up briefly, and then disappearing. Here is what Facebook AI responded with when asked about this happening.
Heather Cox Richardson posts are being deleted as part of a larger removal of online resources by the US government. This removal is in compliance with executive orders from President Donald Trump's administration, which aim to eliminate content related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, gender identity, and other topics ¹.
Richardson, a historian and professor, is known for her newsletters and social media posts that provide historical context to current events. Her work often touches on topics like democracy, equality, and social justice, which might be affected by the executive orders ².
The removed content includes over 8,000 web pages and approximately 3,000 datasets across various federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Census Bureau, and the Department of Justice ¹.
Given that it is AI it could be pure BS, but it has the ring of truth to it.
Also, a semantics issue was raised in the comments regarding my title, given that she hasn’t been fully removed from the site, just her posts. I see this as a distinction without much of a difference. Yes, technically she is still on the site and can post. But given that her posts quickly disappear, the effect is the same as completely removing her.
