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CrowdTangle has confirmed that, despite its widespread use by academic researchers, journalists, and others, Meta will be phasing out the data tool.
The public insights tool from the social media giant made it easy to follow, analyze, and report on what’s happening with public content on online networking platforms.
However, Meta has said it would decommission it by August 14, 2024, instead replacing it with a system called the Meta Content Library.
The firm confirmed to ReadWrite that the five-month notice period “should give people time to complete any current projects they are using it for and, if eligible, to get up to speed with our new research tools, Meta Content Library and API, or others that serve their needs.”
The company added that researchers will be able to apply for access to the tools with the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan. It aims to provide near real-time public content from Facebook and Instagram. However, it did not elaborate on whether news outlets will get access to the feature.
According to CrowdTangle’s website, news organizations can only continue to use Insights within Meta’s Business Suite, and they may choose to partner with third-parties who have social listening capabilities built on top of Meta’s APIs.
The platform explained that it was originally created to help organize social causes on Facebook, while showcasing what social content overperformed on Facebook Pages.
In 2019, CrowdTangle then added research, academic and fact-checking partners, and built tools to help these partners study how public content spreads across Facebook and Instagram.
Citing the company, the Wall Street Journal said that Meta has already started taking applications for its new content library and that it would be an upgrade over its previous version.
Meta facing backlash from news outlets
Meta announced that the Facebook News tab will be removed for U.S. and Australian users earlier this month. The section was already shut down last year in the UK, France, and Germany as the company shifted its focus towards providing content that people “want to see more of on the platform.”
However, the Australian government threatened action against Meta, after the California-based social media company said it would stop paying local media companies this year for using their content.
It is also set to stop promoting political content across the company’s social apps, adding that AI would play their part in considering “personalized signals, like survey responses, that help us understand what is informative, meaningful, or worth your time” on Facebook.
In a statement made of Thurday (March 14), the company pledged that it would “continue to gather feedback from researchers and add new features and data sets over time.”
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