Anika Begay
Meta is shutting down its CrowdTangle tool, despite researchers asking the company to keep it active until January 2025.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America
Hide caption
active caption
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America
Meta has been bombarded by academics, researchers, policymakers, and regulators over a tool called CrowdTangle, which most people have probably never heard of. It has been used to investigate the spread of violence, political disinformation, and false narratives on Facebook and Instagram.
On Wednesday, less than three months before the U.S. election, Meta will shut down CrowdTangle.
“In this context, Meta has decided to eliminate one of the best tools civil society has to monitor and report the hate speech and election interference that will almost certainly proliferate on its platforms,” said Brandi Geurkink, executive director of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research.
More than 50,000 people have signed letters AND Petitions urging Meta to stop his plansor at least wait six months, according to the Mozilla Foundation.
Regulators, including the European Commission and a bipartisan group of United States senators and members of CongressThey say that shutting down CrowdTangle now could be risky, given how useful it has been in helping researchers identify security threats and disinformation, especially around election time.
Meta’s new tool is more limited
CrowdTangle has given researchers and journalists a glimpse into how Facebook and Instagram algorithms work and how false information goes viral. But in recent years, Meta has begun to limit the tool and stop accepting new users.
A Meta spokesperson declined to comment on CrowdTangle’s closure, but pointed NPR to a blog post of a new tool called Meta Content Library. The company says the Content Library is more comprehensive and provides a better picture of what’s happening on its platforms.
Nick Clegg, President of Global Affairs at Meta he told Axios that he hopes people will view the Content Library as “a good-faith effort” that could “lead to a flurry of new and interesting research.”
Meta requires researchers to apply for access to the Content Library and they must be from “qualified academic or non-profit institutions that are conducting scientific or public interest research.” This access is much more limited compared to what Meta offered with CrowdTangle.
Hundreds of researchers, including Geurkink, say the Content Library “is still not enough.” He said he welcomes the new tool’s improvements, but “they hardly fill the void left by the closure of CrowdTangle.”
Researchers mourn the loss of CrowdTangle
CrowdTangle was created by Brandon Silverman and Matt Garmur in 2011which offered it to digital publishers such as BuzzFeed, CNN and Vox. Facebook bought it in 2016 and allowed researchers and other media partners to use it for free. It was the first time a major social network provided a tool to the public to monitor trends in real time.
Researchers and journalists quickly discovered that it was extremely useful for tracking viral fake content, including Russian influence operationsaccounts linked to the QAnon Conspiracy Theory AND Disinformation about COVID.
Over the years, CrowdTangle has been used by hundreds of other academics, journalists and companies, covering topics ranging from how The Islamic State has maintained social media accounts TO best practices for comedians on facebook.
The Coalition for Independent Technology Research published a website on Tuesday called “Rest in peace CrowdTangle,” which will commemorate the work done with the tool. Other researchers and observers are also mourning the loss of CrowdTangle.
“The shutdown of this critical tool is another blow to transparency across all of its platforms,” the Real Facebook Oversight Board, a coalition of academics and civil rights groups, said in a statement. “RIP Crowdtangle.”
