MANILA, Philippines – Meta Platforms announced it was shuttering its social media research tool CrowdTangle, which researchers, civil society groups, and journalists used to track and better understand how information, or in some cases disinformation, spread through Facebook and Instagram.
The shutdown of CrowdTangle on Wednesday, August 14, follows despite a petition from researchers, interest groups, and journalists – Rappler included – who sought to keep CrowdTangle going through 2024 and asked Meta to maintain a similar approach with future tools.
Meta announced a replacement, called Meta Content Library and its Content Library API.
The company added 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.” Platformer reported in March, however, that only researchers – and only “several hundred” at that – could apply to be given access to Meta Content Library.
Journalists were ineligible to apply unless they were a part of a nonprofit group or partnered with a research institution.
Meta acquired CrowdTangle in 2016, and it became a mainstay among research groups seeking to understand social media trends, disinformation included, after the company clamped down on access to its APIs in 2018 following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Meta’s choice to close down CrowdTangle is noticeable as social media platforms fight to keep their services as more of a black box, disallowing researchers and other prying eyes from scrutinizing the processes behind them.
For instance, X, formerly Twitter, also took down its free application programming interface and also made such data expensive to access. The company’s CEO, Elon Musk, also sued nonprofits whose views and research he disagreed with, such as the Center for Countering Digital Hate for its research on hate speech on X related to the Israel-Hamas war. – Rappler.com