Meta's decision to shut down CrowdTangle, an analytics tool that was an “invaluable” resource for the research community, is drawing fresh scrutiny from European Union regulators. The European Commission, which had already expressed concerns about the social network's plan to discontinue the tool ahead of global elections in 2024, is now Pressing Meta for more details about her work with researchers.
The European Commission had already cited CrowdTangle’s impending closure as part of a broader investigation into the company’s handling of disinformation campaigns and election-related policies. Now, just days after CrowdTangle was shut down despite pleas from researchers and civil society organisations to keep it online until the end of the year, regulators are pointedly reminding Meta of its “obligation” under the Digital Services Act (DSA) to allow outside researchers access to its data.
“The Commission asks Meta to provide further information on the measures it has taken to comply with its obligations to give researchers access to publicly accessible data on the online interface of facebook and instagram, as required by the DSA, and on its plans to update its election and civic discourse monitoring functionalities,” the European Commission wrote in a statement. “In particular, the Commission requests information on Meta’s content library and application programming interface (API), including its eligibility criteria, application process, data that can be accessed and functionalities.”
Meta has previously pointed to Meta Content Library as a replacement for CrowdTangle, but access to Meta Content Library is much more controlled and researchers have said it does not replicate all of CrowdTangle's functionality.
“We announced earlier this year that we would be discontinuing CrowdTangle because it did not offer a complete picture of what is happening on our platforms,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to Engadget. “We have built new, more comprehensive tools for researchers, called the Meta Content Library & API, and are continuing to negotiate with the European Commission on this matter.”
Updated August 16, 2024, 3:15 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to add a Meta statement.
