As of 14 August 2024, CrowdTangle is no longer available (Image: Meta.com)
Meta-owned CrowdTangle, a tool to track false news and phoney has been shut down as it was replaced with Content Library. This could disappoint researchers and journalists as they have been relying upon the platform to track and combat misinformation and falsehoods.
Meta‘s CrowdTangle which functioned as a public insights tool to explore public content on social media replaced with a new Content Library to make it more user-friendly but not sure if it functions as CrowdTangle. It was said that the Journalists and Researchers used this tool to expose some of the defaults that befell in Meta to the world.
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“As of 14 August 2024, CrowdTangle is no longer available. Meta Content Library and Content Library API, provide useful, high-quality data to researchers. Meta Content library was designed to help us meet new regulatory requirements for data sharing and transparency while meeting Meta’s rigorous privacy and security standards,” Meta stated on the website.
Brandon Silverman, one of the co-founders of the company said that the closure was considered to be Meta’s backdown from the news arena and business. This was already planned in 2016 as the Cambridge Analytical Scandal disclosed that the News business may affect Meta’s major business. This is also said to be a wrong engagement, especially in selling ads X platform has witnessed such practices of keeping ads with hate content as the ads have taken down advertisements from social media platforms.
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This sudden withdrawal of the tool may reduce the exposure to news content. earlier in February Meta announced that the platform may halt recommending political content from accounts that the users don’t follow. As per the reports, this decision would voluntarily affect the world as the election is set to be scheduled to happen anticipating possibilities that the false news may rife at that time.
The new Content Library couldn’t be used as same as the CrowdTangle, the biggest concern is that the company wouldn’t make it available for researchers and journalists for free. This will gradually reduce the use and the platform making it more selective and transparent.
