Vox’s Aja Romano explains why the internet stopped what it was doing to find one particular missing person.

Today’s show was produced by Victoria Chamberlin and Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained.

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