Meta kills misinformation tracking tool despite public outcry

Meta has shut down CrowdTangle, the analytics tool that helped researchers, journalists, and civil society groups understand how information spreads on Facebook and Instagram.

On August 14, Meta announced it would abandon CrowdTangle without an effective replacement. The company says the decision to discontinue CrowdTangle is about meeting its regulatory requirements under the EU’s Digital Services Act.

The decision comes three months before the U.S. election and in the wake of elections in India, South Africa, and Mexico. It also comes after race riots erupted in the UK, believed to have been inflamed by anti-immigrant misinformation on social media.

Security researchers, journalists, and others have protested Meta’s decision to disable CrowdTangle. According to the Mozilla Foundation, more than 50,000 people have signed letters and petitions urging Meta to halt its plans or, at the very least, delay them for six months.

“Meta’s decision will 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,” read one open letter on Mozilla.

“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. It’s a direct threat to our ability to safeguard the integrity of elections.”

CrowdTangle was launched by Brandon Silverman and Matt Garmur in 2011 and was initially available to digital publishers like BuzzFeed, CNN, and Vox. Facebook bought it in 2016 and let researchers and media partners use it for free.

Meta did not comment on CrowdTangle shutting down when Dexerto reached out for comment, but did point us to a blog post about a new tool called Meta Content Library. 

Meta is offering Meta Content Library as a replacement for CrowdTangle. The new tool is supposedly more comprehensive and provides a better understanding of what’s happening on the platform.

However, in reality, the tool is rather limited. Access to the Content Library requires an application, and only individuals from “qualified academic or nonprofit institutions pursuing scientific or public interest research” are eligible.