- CrowdTangle, a tool by Meta that helped fight the spread of misinformation is officially being shut down by the company.
- The company has introduced a new tool called Meta Content Library.
- Many users such as academics, researchers, and even regulators are criticizing the decision, especially considering the US elections are around the corner.
Meta’s decision to shut down CrowdTangle – a tool used to investigate misinformation and false narratives on Facebook and Instagram, has sparked a huge controversy.
Academics, researchers, regulators, and politicians have criticized its decision to shut down the tool just 3 months before the US elections, especially at a time when misinformation on online platforms has drastically increased, thanks to AI.
More than 50,000 people have signed letters and petitions, asking Meta to reconsider its decision or at least wait for another 6 months. The Coalition for Independent Technology Research addressed the news and published a website called RIP CrowdTangle.
‘Shuttering this critical tool in another brazen blow to transparency across its platforms.’ A group called the Real Facebook Oversight Board
Even the European Commission and a bipartisan group of U.S. senators and Congress members criticized the move and said it could be risky to disable the tool at such a crucial time. But still, there are no signs of Meta budging from its decision, at least not yet.
About CrowdTangle
CrowdTangle was created by Brandon Silverman and Matt Garmur in 2011 and later sold to Facebook in 2016. It has been immensely helpful throughout the years. For instance, it helped identify accounts that were spreading misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and accounts linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory.
It also allowed researchers and journalists to peek inside Facebook and Instagram’s systems and see how its algorithms really work. This in turn helped researchers identify security threats and false information.
However, things soon started changing. Meta stopped accepting new users to the tool and began limiting its features, perhaps to make space for its new tool. Yes, that’s right, Meta is replacing CrowdTangle with a new tool.
A spokeswoman from the company also declined to comment on the issue. However, she pointed us to a blog post that talks about a new tool called Meta Content Library that is supposed to replace CrowdTangle.
It looks like Meta is concerned about the mounting grievances because, on August 9, it posted an update. In a blog post, it said that it has been gathering feedback from hundreds of researchers in order to make the platform better suited for their work.
Here are the changes it made to the platform:
- It added exact phrase matching to make it easier for the researchers to search for what they were looking for.
- Researchers can also download selected publicly accessible content posted by popular individuals or organizations as CSV files.
- Facebook and Instagram public comments are also available.
- Collaboration has been made easier. Researchers can share editable content producer lists with fellow researchers. This in turn will help them quickly filter public data from specific content producers on Instagram and Facebook.
- Data from Threads will also be added.
- Last but not least, it will add real-time dashboards that will help users display post feeds and trend charts based on selected keywords and producers.
According to the company, Meta Content Library is much more comprehensive and can give people a better idea of the inner workings of its platform. But is that really true?
Well, for starters, access to this tool is very limited compared to CrowdTangle. The company only allows researchers from “qualified academic or nonprofit institutions who are pursuing scientific or public interest research” to apply to access the platform.
Researchers who did manage to get in say that the Content Library has a long way to go. For example, one researcher pointed out that although the platform comes with a few improvements, there are too many gaps left behind by CrowdTangle that it is yet to fill.
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