In a significant move during a major election year, Meta, the owner of Facebook, will discontinue CrowdTangle, a digital tool widely regarded as essential for tracking viral falsehoods. This decision has raised concerns among researchers, who fear it will disrupt efforts to detect political misinformation, especially in the lead-up to the US election.
CrowdTangle, which has been instrumental in providing real-time transparency into the spread of conspiracy theories and hate speech on Meta-owned platforms like Facebook and Instagram, will be unavailable after August 14. Meta plans to replace it with a new tool that researchers argue lacks the same functionality and will not be widely accessible to news organizations.
The discontinuation of CrowdTangle is seen as part of a broader trend in the tech industry to roll back transparency and security measures. This move comes at a crucial time, as numerous countries are holding elections, during which misinformation campaigns tend to intensify.
According to Melanie Smith, director of research at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, cutting off access to CrowdTangle will severely limit independent oversight of harms and represents a significant setback for social media platform transparency.
Meta intends to introduce a new tool called the Content Library, which is still in development. However, some experts, including former CrowdTangle CEO Brandon Silverman, have expressed doubts about its effectiveness, particularly in elections where AI-enabled falsehoods are expected to proliferate.
