Meta is Silent on Plans with CrowdTangle
Meta, the company that comprises Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire, seems to have completed their transition to fully ridding its platforms of CrowdTangle, a social media analytics and monitoring tool responsible for tracking engagement. The data showed that right-wing media sources received outsized engagement compared to their left-wing counterparts.
Reports revealed that there were tensions related to data sharing and transparency within the company. Plans also suggested that Meta was planning to discard the tool to avoid the data being obtained by outside sources. Rumors—highly corroborated rumors—are flying. Meta has still not released an official statement on the matter.
The European Union’s (EU) response to the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian disinformation, the strengthened European Code of Practice on Disinformation, appears to be another driving force behind Meta’s decision to get rid of CrowdTangle—if Meta doesn’t get the tool out before 2023, they could have a harder time getting it out at all. Meta spokesperson Sabrina Nadia Siddiqui told the International Fact-Checking Network that Meta has “been looking at all of the different products we offer to help researchers understand the impact of our platform and discussing ways that we can make these tools even more valuable for them.”
Since the downsizing of CrowdTangle, the program has reportedly become so buggy that it is inoperable on some days. For journalists, this is bad news: CrowdTangle is especially useful for tracking misinformation and who is responsible for it, as well as for fact-checking and the ability to analyze the algorithm behind Facebook content.
“We are in a totally unfair war against misinformation, so if we have this tool that works properly, losing it would be a problem,” said Pablo Fernández, an Argentinian journalist and executive director of Chequeado, a Buenos Aires-based fact-checking organization. “We want to try to keep it, at least for fact-checkers.”
One of the greatest information crises is in American politics, but Meta has been notably silent on election misinformation, according to inside sources.
“They’re not talking about it,” said former Facebook policy director Katie Harbath, now the CEO of the tech and policy firm Anchor Change. “Best case scenario: They’re still doing a lot behind the scenes. Worst case scenario: They pull back, and we don’t know how that’s going to manifest itself for the midterms on the platforms.”
Several candidates who are pushing election misinformation are still running for office and false media about the 2020 general election is still very present. Meta’s silence seems calculated, and the loss of CrowdTangle altogether would be a difficult one for journalists—particularly abroad.
“Next year we have presidential elections in Argentina and losing tools is exactly the opposite of what we need,” Fernández said. “Smaller orgs will be hit harder, but it’s a problem for everyone.”
The anticipation and anxiety almost seems worse as journalists all bite their nails
