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Journalists and researchers have used CrowdTangle to uncover disinformation and other issues on Facebook and Instagram, but now Meta has taken the service offline.
Meta has shut down its analytics tool CrowdTangle, despite complaints from various groups and concerns around online disinformation.
CrowdTangle is a real-time public insights tool that the tech giant acquired in 2016. The monitoring tool let users search through content on Facebook and Instagram, to spot developing trends and the growth of certain groups.
The tool has been described as “invaluable” for researchers looking into Meta’s social media sites, while journalists have shared examples of how the tool was used to spot disinformation campaigns on these platforms, even earlier this month.
Despite these benefits, Meta revealed plans earlier this year to discontinue CrowdTangle. As of today (14 August), the company said CrowdTangle is no longer available and suggested its Content Library as an alternative option for researchers – but ABC News reports that this Library will be restricted to approved academics and non-profit researchers.
“Meta Content Library was designed to help us meet new regulatory requirements for data sharing and transparency, while meeting Meta’s rigorous privacy and security standards,” the company said in a blogpost.
Online outcry
Multiple organisations have spoken out against Meta for the removal of CrowdTangle. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism said the tool was “integral” to various investigations such as a series exposing misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In supporting [CrowdTangle], Meta showed that it wasn’t completely opposed to attempts to make its platforms less damaging for users and wider society,” the Bureau said.
The Mozilla Foundation spoke out against the decision earlier this year in an open letter and said removing support for CrowdTangle would effectively “prohibit the outside world, including election integrity experts, from seeing what’s happening on Facebook and Instagram – during the biggest election year on record”.
“This means almost all outside efforts to identify and prevent political disinformation, incitements to violence and online harassment of women and minorities will be silenced,” Mozilla said. “It’s a direct threat to our ability to safeguard the integrity of elections.”
The European Commission is currently investigating Meta to see if it has breached the Digital Services Act. One concern shared by the Commission is the non-availability of “an effective third-party real-time civic discourse and election-monitoring tool”. The Commission said this concern stemmed from the planned shutdown of CrowdTangle “without an adequate replacement”.
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