“Really bad timing”: Meta is killing misinformation analysis tool on August 14

Meta is discontinuing data analysis tool CrowdTangle on August 14. The closure will come three months ahead of the next US presidential election and three years after it was reported that the platform used for spotting misinformation on Facebook and Instagram was causing internal strife.

Meta acquired CrowdTangle in 2016. CrowdTangle has been used by researchers, reporters, and government officials to identify trends about conspiracies and other forms of misinformation spreading through Facebook. Meta is going to replace CrowdTangle with a technology currently under development called Meta Content Library, but it will only be available to academic and nonprofit researchers. For-profit organizations, like many news organizations, will lose access, as The Wall Street Journal points out.

Previously, CrowdTangle had some features available to the public, like Live Displays, which tracked how people discussed trending topics on certain social media channels like Facebook Pages. Journalists working at for-profit news outlets were able to apply for access to the full CrowdTangle service, as were publishers, including music labels, content creators, and public figures.