Meta, the social media giant owned by Mark Zuckerberg, has shut down CrowdTangle, an investigative tool used to monitor social media posts that are suspected to contain misinformation.
The move upset a series of nonprofits, who wrote letters to protest Meta’s move to a new tool called Content Library. Their issue stems from Meta’s restriction of Content Library use to “qualified academic institutions or nonprofits conducting scientific or public interest research.”
This meant that many journalists did not have immediate access to new tools. TechCrunch Reported.
A letter sent to Meta in May 2024 requested that CrowdTangle continue to be used until at least January 2025 and available through the 2024 presidential election.
“This decision puts at risk a vital pre- and post-election oversight mechanism and undermines Meta’s transparency efforts at this critical time when public trust and digital democracy are alarmingly fragile.” Human Rights Watch It is stated on the website.
“This disruption poses serious risks to the efforts of civil rights groups, activists, journalists, and election officials to identify and mitigate political misinformation, incitement to violence, and online attacks against vulnerable communities.”
The letter was signed by about 50 organizations, including Media Matters for America, the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD and the Center for American Progress.
The Mozilla Foundation, which runs the popular web browser Firefox, has announced that it letter They also criticize Meta for its lack of transparency.
“CrowdTangle has long represented industry best practices for real-time platform transparency and has been a vital tool for understanding how misinformation, hate speech, and voter suppression spread on Facebook, undermining civil discourse and democracy,” the company wrote.
Mozilla also expects Meta to continue operating until at least after the 2024 election cycle.
Despite the protests, the Meta Content Library appears to be much the same in that it allows users to search for keywords in public Facebook and Instagram posts.
Other features were discussed in a recent Meta post. Blog.
in MIT Technology Conference In May 2024, Meta’s president of global operations was asked why the company was waiting until at least 2025 to transition away from CrowdTangle.
“It only measures a narrow slice of a cake, a particular form of engagement,” Nick Clegg said. “It literally doesn’t tell you what people are looking at online.”
Clegg strongly defended the decision, saying he took it personally that journalists and researchers didn’t understand why the change was being made. He even argued that the tool should have been removed sooner.
Return editor-in-chief Peter Gietl said the move may signal a growing desire for Zuckerberg and Meta to move away from political content.
“Interviews and recent reports suggest Zuckerberg is avoiding making any major political moves during the 2024 election cycle,” Gietl said. “We’ve seen him attend UFC events and jiu-jitsu tournaments and praise Donald Trump as a great guy. The company appears to be shifting its focus away from appeasing political activists and toward focusing on its own technology, such as augmented reality.”
According to The Washington PostIn fact, political donations from Zuckerberg’s organizations have dried up.
Political grants and awards related to Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, totaled $2.5 million, less than 1% of their total spending in 2020, about $332 million.
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