SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has shut down CrowdTangle, a tool widely used by researchers, watchdog organizations and journalists to monitor social media posts, notably to track how misinformation spreads on the company’s platforms.
Wednesday’s shutdown, which Meta announced earlier this year, has been protested by researchers and nonprofits. In May, dozens of groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, Human Rights Watch and NYU’s Center for Social Media & Politics, sent a letter to the company asking that it keep the tool running through at least January so it would be available through the U.S. presidential elections.
“This decision jeopardizes essential pre- and post-election oversight mechanisms and undermines Meta’s transparency efforts during this critical period, and at a time when social trust and digital democracy are alarmingly fragile,” the letter said.
CrowdTangle, “has been an essential tool in helping researchers parse through the vast amount of information on the platform and identify harmful content and threats,” it added.
In March, the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation sent Meta a similar letter asking it to keep the tool, which was available for free, functioning until January. That letter was also signed by several dozen groups and individual academic researchers.
“For years, CrowdTangle has represented an industry best practice for real-time platform transparency. It has become a lifeline for understanding how disinformation, hate speech, and voter suppression spread on Facebook, undermining civic discourse and democracy,” the Mozilla letter said.
Meta has released an alternative to CrowdTangle, called the Meta Content Library. But access to it is limited to academic researchers and nonprofits, which excludes most news organizations. Critics have also complained that it’s not as useful as CrowdTangle — at least not yet.
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said in a blog post last week that the company has been gathering feedback about Meta Content Library from “hundreds of researchers in order to make it more user-friendly and help them find the data they need for their work.”
Meta said Wednesday that CrowdTangle doesn’t provide a complete picture of what is happening on its platforms and said its new tools are more comprehensive.
Meta acquired CrowdTangle in 2016.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, recently announced that it will be discontinuing CrowdTangle, a popular tool used by researchers and journalists to track misinformation on social media platforms. This decision has sparked outrage among many in the academic and journalism communities who rely on CrowdTangle for monitoring the spread of false information online.
CrowdTangle was originally developed as an independent company before being acquired by Facebook in 2016. The tool allowed users to track the performance of content on social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It provided valuable insights into how information was being shared and engaged with online, making it a crucial resource for those studying the spread of misinformation.
Despite its usefulness, Meta has decided to shut down CrowdTangle, citing a shift in focus towards other tools and initiatives. This decision has been met with criticism from researchers and journalists who argue that CrowdTangle played a vital role in combating misinformation and holding social media platforms accountable for the content shared on their sites.
Many have expressed concerns that without CrowdTangle, it will be much more difficult to track the spread of false information online. Researchers fear that this move will hinder their ability to study and understand the impact of misinformation on society, while journalists worry that it will make it harder to hold platforms like Facebook accountable for their role in spreading false information.
In response to the backlash, Meta has stated that it is committed to fighting misinformation and is exploring new ways to support researchers and journalists in their efforts to track and combat false information online. However, many remain skeptical of these assurances, pointing to the decision to discontinue CrowdTangle as evidence of a lack of commitment to transparency and accountability.
The discontinuation of CrowdTangle highlights the ongoing challenges faced by researchers and journalists in combating misinformation online. As social media platforms continue to play a significant role in shaping public discourse, it is more important than ever to have access to tools like CrowdTangle that can help monitor and analyze the spread of false information. The decision by Meta to shut down CrowdTangle serves as a stark reminder of the need for greater transparency and accountability from tech companies in the fight against misinformation.
