Meta Discontinues CrowdTangle Amid Concerns: Critics Argue New Tool Lacks 99% of Its Features

Journalists, scholars, and government officials are expressing their disapproval over Meta’s decision to discontinue CrowdTangle, a tool previously employed to investigate the dissemination of false information across Facebook and Instagram.

Replacing CrowdTangle, Meta introduces its Content Library, restricting its access exclusively to individuals affiliated with “qualified academic or nonprofit organizations” involved in research for scientific or public benefits. This restriction leaves out a large number of academics and nearly all journalists.

Critics of the Meta Content Library highlight its reduced transparency and accessibility, noting it offers fewer features and delivers a subpar user interface compared to its predecessor.

The community has voiced its concerns through public letters to Meta, questioning the rationale behind discontinuing a widely acclaimed misinformation fighting tool especially before a highly divisive U.S. election, already under the threat of AI-generated deep fakes and misleading information from Meta’s AI chatbot, only to replace it with a less potent tool, according to academics.

One is left wondering, if the existing system was functioning adequately, why the need for change?

Little in the way of explanations has come from Meta. At a May session of the MIT Technology Review conference, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, defended the discontinuation of CrowdTangle, arguing it provided incomplete and misleading insights into activities on Facebook.

“It only captures a tiny segment of engagement,” Clegg commented at the conference, underlining its inability to accurately represent the online views of the public.

Clegg’s statements starkly contrast with Meta’s earlier support for CrowdTangle in 2020, where it was promoted as a critical tool for Secretaries of State and election boards nationwide to identify and counteract misinformation and electoral interference.

Today, Meta asserts that the Content Library offers deeper insights into the actual experiences and content viewership of users on Facebook and Instagram, with a Meta spokesperson claiming it provides a more encompassing data analysis experience to TechCrunch.

However, some researchers accustomed to CrowdTangle’s capabilities have expressed reservations.

Cameron Hickey, the program director at the Algorithmic Transparency Institute, noted to TechCrunch that CrowdTangle, once a highly functional quasi-commercial entity before being acquired by Facebook in 2016, saw improvements under Facebook’s ownership due to a steady stream of user feedback. In contrast, he suggests Meta’s content library only mirrors a fraction of CrowdTangle’s functionality.

Hickey highlighted the unique insights CrowdTangle offered, for instance tracking changes in the follower counts of platforms like CNN’s Facebook page over time, an analytical aspect missing from the Meta Content Library. This feature was particularly valuable for examining the dynamics of social media influence and its fluctuations.

Moreover, conducting analyses comparable to those possible with CrowdTangle on MCL is reported to be much more cumbersome, highlighting a downgrade in user experience.

Notably, MCL’s restrictive data management means researchers have limited capabilities in creating interactive visuals or downloading comprehensive datasets, only allowing post downloads from accounts exceeding 25,000 followers, a criterion excluding many political figures.

This limitation forces researchers to consider more complex methods, such as data scraping, introducing further challenges.

A significant setback with MCL is Meta’s decision to cut off access to groups that previously utilized CrowdTangle for monitoring misinformation prevalence effectively.

Media Matters, a journalism watchdog organization, informed TechCrunch that their access to MCL is denied, hindering their efforts to debunk myths around conservative censorship on Facebook, as their research using CrowdTangle showed right-leaning pages actually enjoyed more engagement than their counterparts.

Such tools had enabled insights into the content resonating with users on the platform, offering a slight peek into the otherwise opaque world of social media algorithms, as per Kayla Gogarty from Media Matters.

Researchers and investigative journalists had leveraged CrowdTangle to highlight potential threats and organizing efforts linked to significant events, such as the unrest preceding the January 6 Capitol assault, showcasing its value in real-time monitoring.

The diminished access to these analytical tools spells challenges for civil groups aiming to oversee activities on Facebook and Instagram, especially during election periods, noted Brandi Geurkink of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research to TechCrunch.

The discussion highlights a stark contrast between Meta’s approach to providing insights through the Content Library and Elon Musk’s drastic restrictions on Twitter’s API access, significantly impacting data analysis affordability and scale for various stakeholders.