how do the police decide which missing people to post on their social media

[Howto60]

I’ve noticed a lot of missing persons appeal lately. Some of which are posted a matter of hours after the person was last seen and others days later. How do they decide who to post on social media? I would also imagine a lot of missing people are never posted about on social media.

Is it vulnerability maybe?

The circumstances I suppose.

Vulnerable people, for sure.
Young healthy grumpy competent adult disappears : probably wanted to, can probably fend for self and having an adventure.

Elderly confused frail or very young disappears: Big Deal.

They have a fairly sophisticated algorithm that looks at how vulnerable the person is, where and when they were last seen, previous behaviour, time of day/weather, the person reporting them missing etc.