Meta, Formerly Known As Facebook, Has Made The Decision To Shut Down Its Social Media Tracking Tool, Crowdtangle. This Move Comes As Part Of Meta’S Ongoing Efforts To Restructure And Focus On Its Main Platforms. Crowdtangle, Which Was Acquired By Facebook In 2016, Allowed Users To Monitor And Analyze Social Media Content And Engagement Across Various Platforms. However, Meta’S Decision To Discontinue Crowdtangle Has Sparked Concerns Among Journalists, Researchers, And Social Media Watchdogs Who Heavily Relied On The Tool For Their Work. The Shutdown Of Crowdtangle Will Undoubtedly Have Implications For The Media And Research Communities Who Heavily Relied On This Platform For Monitoring And Analyzing Social Media Trends And Content.

Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has recently decided to shut down CrowdTangle, a popular tool utilized by researchers, watchdog organizations, and journalists to monitor social media posts.

The announced shutdown, which Meta informed earlier this year, has sparked protests from researchers and nonprofits. In May, numerous groups including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, Human Rights Watch, and NYU’s Center for Social Media & Politics, jointly penned a letter to the company, urging them to continue operating the tool until at least January so that it would be accessible throughout the U.S. presidential elections.

The groups stated, “This decision jeopardizes crucial pre- and post-election oversight mechanisms and undermines Metas transparency efforts during this critical period, and at a time when social trust and digital democracy are alarmingly fragile.”

They emphasized that CrowdTangle has played a vital role in helping researchers sift through the enormous amount of information on the platform, enabling the identification of harmful content and potential threats.

Furthermore, in March, the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation also sent a letter to Meta, requesting the company to keep CrowdTangle functional until January. This letter was supported by various groups and individual academic researchers.

The Mozilla letter stated, “For years, CrowdTangle has represented an industry best practice for real-time platform transparency. It has become a lifeline for understanding how disinformation, hate speech, and voter suppression spread on Facebook, undermining civic discourse and democracy.”

It should be noted that Meta has introduced an alternative to CrowdTangle called the Meta Content Library. However, access to this new tool is currently limited to academic researchers and nonprofits, excluding the majority of news organizations. Critics have also expressed dissatisfaction, claiming that it is not as effective as CrowdTangle, at least not yet.

Last week, Meta’s President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, mentioned in a blog post that the company has been actively seeking feedback from hundreds of researchers to enhance the user-friendliness of the Meta Content Library and assist them in finding the necessary data for their work.

Meta stated on Wednesday that CrowdTangle does not provide a comprehensive picture of activities occurring on its platforms and asserted that their new tools offer more comprehensive insights.

It is worth mentioning that Meta acquired CrowdTangle in 2016.