By: Casey M. Jones
Since I've been there I have been staying behind a church and living out of a tent, sleeping on fork lift pallets that I used for the floor. I have also cleared quite a number of trees since I've been there and eliminated some dangerous situations for people as well as helped them clear things out of their way so they could access driveways, walkways, buildings, etc...
In addition to this effort, I was using Facebook to communicate with people who were affected by the storm and locating people who needed help and who couldn't afford to pay for these services. At some point today, Facebook disabled my personal account and gave no reason or explanation for doing so, and so I have appealed this but am still waiting for them to respond and hopefully provide me with some kind of information as to why they did this. I have no idea what I could have done which would justify them doing this, other than tell people about the Facebook group called "Hurricane Laura Aftermath" and how that group has effectively destroyed the social media reach for everyone who is affected by the storm.
When Hurricane Laura made landfall as a category 4 storm, the maximum sustained wind was reported as being 150 mph which is only 7 mph short of being labeled a category 5 storm. Shortly after the storm had passed the public Facebook group called "Hurricane Laura Aftermath" was created and it quickly gained members. Within a few days it had reached a viral growth rate and had gained 105,000 members, and I was one of them. I was also a very active member posting what I could find to help the people in the affected areas. The group was off to a very good start and it was very helpful.
Around that time, the administrators and the moderators made the decision to change the group from public to private, and as soon as I noticed this I created a post asking them what they were doing and why. I was informed by several people that they were doing that in order to deal with arguments that people were having. I urged them to reconsider as I knew this decision would kill the momentum and the growth of the group and that it would be a bad decision for the people who were affected by the storm. After failing to convince them to change the decision, I reluctantly left that group and started a public group called "Hurricane Laura Aftermath (Public)", even though I knew that it was nearly impossible for this group to even come close to the number of members of the group I had just left. Regardless, I still did this because I'd rather post information in a group that I know everyone can see rather than waste all of my information in a group that only members of that group could see or share.
At some point shortly after all of this transpired it occurred to me that because the administrators of that group had made the decision to change the setting to private, by doing that they essentially changed the function of the group from a social media platform into a private forum, and that they had also basically destroyed the entire recovery efforts as far as social media was/is concerned. You may be one of the people who don't understand how this is possible or how it is possible for five (5) individuals to accomplish destroying the usefulness of an entire social media effort, so I will explain.
First, let's look at how fast the group grew from 1 member to 105,000 members; this was accomplished within a few days following the storm. Here we are today, Monday, September 21, 2020, and almost four (4) weeks after the storm and that same group has reached around 126,000 members. As soon as the group switched to private, members of the group could no longer share any of the posts from that group to any other group, page, or profile on Facebook which killed their viral growth rate and slowed growth to a crawl.
Some argued that they could in fact share posts, but what they failed to realize is that if you aren't a member of that group already, all you see is a link back to that group and you can't see what the post is actually about. There are many people who will not even look twice at a link such as that because there isn't anything specific about the link, it is simply a link to a group and nothing more, and that is not an effective way to grow the group or to spread the message you're trying to put in front of people. So yes, technically you could share a post from the group, but regardless of which post you share from that group, anyone who is not already a member of it sees nothing but a link to the group, nothing more.
By switching the group to private they essentially trapped anyone who doesn't understand how social media works from a programmer's perspective in a "private bubble" and that everything the members are posting in that group can really only be seen by other members of that group. Fundamentally, this is exactly how private forums function, and private forums were around for decades prior to social media platforms emerging as a superior way of reaching people with information they might not see anywhere else. Not only does this mean that the vast majority of the members of that group have no idea that their efforts are not accomplishing anywhere close to what is generally expected of social media outlets such as Facebook, but the fact that there were 105,000 members when the decision was made also means that the most active Facebook users are the ones who are in this bubble as well, and that means that even if other groups were created after the fact, there's no way that any of them would ever have a chance to reach a viral growth rate as that group had reached within only a few days of the storm.
But wait, the bad news doesn't end there, it gets worse. That decision to switch that group to private also ensured that local news stations that use Facebook as a major news delivery outlet would be trapped in that same private bubble as well, because the people who are sharing their news stories on Facebook are sharing them to that group because that's where they are and that's where they're all seeing the majority of the information coming in. So had that decision not been made, people who weren't already members of that group would be seeing people share their news articles publicly and those articles would be circulating in a much more effective way than they no doubt are at present.
The decision made by the administrators of that group could not have come at a worse time either, in the wake of one of the worst hurricanes that Louisiana has ever seen and thousands upon thousands of people displaced and homeless, without power, or with major disruptions of normal means communication or travel. What makes it even worse is the fact that there is almost no national coverage of what is going on in the wake of Hurricane Laura so not only are the national news outlets not informing people outside of the affected areas of what is going on, but now the entire social media efforts have been completely destroyed as well. This basically means that unless people are helping with boots on the ground rather than just trying to inform people via social media, then they're really not helping as much as they might be had that decision not been made.
The more I thought about this, the worse that decision looked. It is hard to believe that a handful of people will ultimately be solely responsible for causing the entire recovery efforts to be severely impacted in a negative way, but knowing what I know from a programmer's perspective and understanding social media the way that I do, I have no choice but to personally accept the fact that this will in fact be the case where the Hurricane Laura recovery efforts are concerned. I have also considered that this entire chain of events is so destructive to those affected by the storm that it looks more like it was intentional than it was accidental.
If you think about it, this would be a perfect use for a cyber warfare or espionage tactic as it would seriously impact how quickly the entire recovery effort following a natural disaster could be brought to completion. Ultimately, having so many people in a bad situation for as long as possible would be ideal for anyone who might gain from hurting the United States. The decision that was made has now become a threat to national security in addition to a serious hinderance to the overall recovery process for all of the people affected by the storm.
I contacted the Lake Charles news station KPLC with this information as soon as I realized the implications of what that group had done and urged them to have a social media expert consider what I was telling them. I have also contacted people who hold government office and are in a position to influence what is transpiring as a result of that group's actions. So far my pleas to anyone who might be able to reach out to the group or their administrators has gone unheeded. I am awaiting a response from the people who hold government offices, but hopefully they will look into what I've said here as this is a serious issue and needs to be prevented from happening in the future.
Facebook could easily prevent this from happening by disallowing any group related to a natural disaster from changing the group's privacy settings from public to private. The government could also prevent this from happening by establishing official Facebook groups in the wake of natural disasters, administered by people who know how to use Facebook's built-in controls for dealing with moderation and administration related issues which are common in large groups of people on any social media platform. Dealing with arguments is easily handled with these controls and through assigning trustworthy moderators and administrators to those positions within the group.
As it stands now, the Facebook group "Hurricane Laura Aftermath" and their administrators either don't care about the storm victims, don't understand social media and how it works well enough to administer such an important group, or are doing this intentionally to hinder the recovery efforts. Make no mistake though, out of those three choices the administrators of that group are responsible for owning at least one of them, now the question becomes, "Which one?" "Which one?", and "What do we do about it?" At minimum, someone needs to reach out to the administrators and explain the problems they're causing so if they don't understand them, they are given the opportunity to learn from their mistake. If they're doing it intentionally, their group should be shut down so that all of the people who have been trapped in that private bubble can begin actually using the potential of social media to its fullest.
I will post updates to this issue as I have them, and when I'm not actually over there in the wake-zone cutting trees and cleaning up for people. By far, this is one of the worst storms I've seen in my lifetime in terms of wind damage, and I've been in many places in Southwest Louisiana in the wake of this hurricane, and in the wake of hurricanes past as well, so I know what I'm talking about here.
Godspeed to everyone affected by the storm, and I will continue to help in the ways I have control over until things get back to normal for people affected.
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