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The CrowdTangle announcement goes global, civil society groups respond and notes from Brussels
It’s been a busy few weeks, to say the least, and there’s a lot to cover in this newsletter, so let’s get right into it. In this post, I’ll be covering:
The global response to the CrowdTangle announcement
Mozilla’s letter and the response from global civil society groups
My biggest takeaway from the announcement
Trade and Technology Council event in Brussels
Interesting links
Follow-up to Meta’s CrowdTangle announcement
The main topic is, of course, that three weeks ago, Meta finally announced its plans to shut down CrowdTangle.
I initially wrote up a lot of my initial thoughts in this post here, but over the next few days, I also talked to a few outlets as well, including Fast Company, Wired, Stanford’s Moderated Content podcast, and Casey Newton’s Platformer.
As I said in most of those interviews, the announcement itself was not surprising, but the timing was, mostly because of how many elections are taking place this year and some of the important gaps that still exist in their replacement. Meta’s attempts to make the claims the Content Library is actually *better* are either senior leaders just being misinformed or, at worst, they’re being intentionally misleading, but either way, they’re not accurate, and I’ll get more into that later.
But I wanted to share some of the coverage that ensued over the last few weeks because (1) a lot of the notes from old partners and positive articles meant a lot to our team, and (2) more importantly, I think the scope of the response should be seen as proof to regulators that this work matters. And I’m not just talking about the fact that the Epoch Times covered the news :).
For starters, we got a lot of very kind and wonderful notes from old partners. Thank you to everyone who either posted something publicly or sent us direct messages. It was wonderful to see the names of so many old partners and be reminded of a lot of the great work we did together. 🙏 🙏 🙏
One of my favorites was this one from Ray Serrato, an integrity researcher, who is now at LinkedIn, but shared some of the visualizations he built with CrowdTangle data over the years, including this one:
Regulators and elected officials also weighed in, including a member of Facebook’s own Oversight Board, one of the most prominent internet regulators in Australia, and Senator Chris Coons from Delaware, who posted about it on a variety of platforms:
There was also just the news coverage itself. The story broke in the Wall Street Journal in a piece by Jeff Horwitz. It was followed by a steady stream of articles throughout the day, including everyone from Engadget to Nieman Lab to Quartz to CNN to Axios and a lot more.
But the announcement also spread globally.
Here are just a few that I came across my radar:
ABS-CBN (Philippines), “Meta killing social content tracking tool CrowdTangle”
Le Monde (France), “Meta to remove CrowdTangle, crucial software for spotting misinformation on Facebook and Instagram”
The Daily Sabah (Turkey), “Meta's removal of monitoring tool sparks unease in election year”
The Australian (Australia), “Meta’s own ‘supreme court’ says shutting down CrowdTangle tool could limit checks on algorithmic bias”.
In some cases, it ended up being featured on national television in places like Uruguay:
Or India:
Or Brazil:
And there are hundreds more. I did a quick scan and counted at least 200 articles. Needless to say, the story got a lot of attention.
But that wasn’t all.
Mozilla’s letter to Meta
In response to the announcement, the Mozilla Foundation put out a letter highlighting the potential impact this could have on election monitoring around the world and making a handful of very reasonable requests (in my opinion), including simply keeping CrowdTangle running until after the wave of global elections happening this year.
When Mozilla told me they’d be writing a letter, I thought their requests made a lot of sense, and I agreed to sign it. And apparently, a lot of our old partners agreed as well. When I woke up the morning after attaching my name, their letter had garnered over 100 signatories from all over the world, including groups like the Center for Democracy & Technology, Access Now, Myanmar Tech Accountability Project, Internews Ukraine, and more.
From what I can tell, a significant percentage (if not the majority) of the groups who signed the letter are small civil society groups, a lot of whom are based in developing countries ranging from Nigeria to Ghana to Kenya to Croatia to Myanmar…places where Meta and other platforms traditionally don’t have much staff or local expertise. In my opinion, these groups are exactly the kind of local experts that Meta and other platforms should be finding more ways to work with, not less.
Within a week, the letter had almost 200 signatories, including not just civil society groups, but some of the leading social media researchers in the world and even Nobel Peace Prize Winner Maria Ressa.
My biggest takeaway from the coverage
All the coverage was obviously a nice reminder for our team about a lot of the amazing partners we worked with over the years and a lot of the impact we had. But the main reason I’m highlighting all the coverage is that as far as I can tell, there’s been zero substantive response from Meta (at least that I’ve heard).
At the moment, it simply seems like the global frustration of some of the most prominent researchers, civil society groups and news outlets in the world, including a lot of whom are partners of theirs and represent local experts from some of the most vulnerable communities in the world, simply doesn’t matter.
That’s really unfortunate.
But it’s also exactly why this work matters.
Personally speaking, I’m more motivated than ever to keep working on it. And if I was Meta, I wouldn’t expect the coverage or the pressure to be over. And if I was a regulator, the global outcry would make me realize how much this particular form of transparency has a real impact.
And to that end…
Participating in the Trade and Technology Council event in Belgium
I’ve said for a while that one of the few ways we can make real progress on this issue is through regulation. On April 4th, I was invited to represent the White House and the broader U.S. research community at the last Trade and Technology Council in Leuven, Belgium.
The TTC is a collaboration between the Biden administration and the European Commission that has been going on for the last four years and covers a wide variety of joint policy interests, including data access and supply chains, climate tech, technology standards, and more.
I was there alongside a small group of researchers and regulators to talk about regulating platform data & researcher access, including where things currently stand now, how the U.S. and European Union can work together, and what work still remains.
It was a fascinating experience, and I'm grateful for having had the chance to participate...including sitting at the table with so many impressive leaders like Rebekah Tromble, Anna Lenhart, Emma Llanso, Alex Engler, Silvia Merisio, Rita Wezenbeek, Marc Faddoul and even Thierry Breton, who stopped by our session to express his support for the work. It was also really powerful to hear from researchers like Prof. Debbie Ging and Elissa R. on how data access makes it possible to study technology-facilitated online gender-based violence and other threats to human rights online.
The meeting represented an important moment for the U.S. and the European Commission to advance the importance of regulating independent research on large platforms.
Speaking personally, I think there are few things that are clear right now from a regulatory standpoint, including (1) there are ethical and privacy-protecting ways to do this sort of research, (2) even if you just focus on public data, there is still a lot of important research that can be done, (3) platforms still have a long way to go to provide the programs independent researchers need, and (4) independent research on large platforms would be in a far worse situation right now if it weren't for the DSA.
You can read the full report on the "Status Report: Mechanisms for Researcher Access to Online Platform Data". You can also read a second report on the "Joint Principles on Combatting Gender based Violence in the Digital Environment".
You can also see a great write-up of the event, as well as what it meant for data access and researchers, in Mark Scott’s Digital Bridge newsletter for Politico Europe.
In the words of Mark Scott:
“The meeting in Leuven demonstrates how EU-U.S. cooperation on digital policymaking can work — well beyond the flashy lights of press conferences and lavish banquets. It’s the grubby “meat and potatoes” policy efforts that, for me, are why the Trade and Tech Council has been a success. It’s also a clear sign why social media data access remains crucial to effective digital rulemaking.”
Interesting links
My friend and frequent source of inspiration, Natalie Foster, has a new book coming out called “The Guarantee” and you should buy it immediately and also try to make it one of her events coming up. I finished it in a few days and can’t recommend it more strongly.
This is officially one of my favorite YouTube videos of all-time.
This Substack, and all the accompanying original research and analysis that comes with it, is one of my favorite and most consistent regular reads when it comes to understanding large platforms. I feel like I learn something every time I read it.
This seems fascinating and really useful…and all the people involved are really smart and thoughtful about this stuff…of course, the question is what impact this sort of ranking would have on short-term metrics inside companies.
Our family headed to Austin to try and see the solar eclipse. Despite some cloud cover, we still got a decent view of it but over at Kottke, they have a phenomenal collection of some of the photos from the event.
Coming next
There are a bunch of other topics that I have on my list to write about and will be coming soon, including:
Most importantly, the specific differences between the Content Library and CrowdTangle and why Meta’s claims that the CL is better are misleading (and where they should focus to close the gap)
Why California bill AB886 is going to be a huge blow to the news industry and why there’s a better way to support journalism
Why platform transparency is AI transparency
What the latest federal privacy bill might mean for transparency efforts in the U.S.
Why we need an international standards body for data sharing and how we can get there
Mozilla’s latest stress tests on ad repositories and what we should take from it