Meta announces shutdown of CrowdTangle
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram has announced the shutdown of CrowdTangle, a public insights tool.
In an email to CrowdTangle users, Meta announced that the feature would no longer be available after August 14, 2024.
Meta says the development will allow the company to focus resources on its new research tools, Meta Content Library and Content Library API, which provide useful, high-quality data to researchers.
"This message is to let you know that CrowdTangle will no longer be available after August 14, 2024," the email read in part.
"Our data-sharing products are evolving alongside technology and regulatory changes. Phasing out CrowdTangle will allow us to focus resources on our new research tools, Meta Content Library and Content Library API, which provide useful, high-quality data to researchers."
The too is a public insights tool from Meta that makes it easy to follow, analyze, and report on what’s happening with public content on social media.
The statement from Meta indicates that data in CrowdTangle will continue to be updated in real-time until August 14, 2024.
However, Meta says the platform will be in maintenance mode and platform support will be limited to bugs that impact a wide number of users.
"After August 14, 2024, you will no longer have access to CrowdTangle’s User Interface or API. We understand that this change may impact the work you are doing on the platform. You can reference our FAQs for more information on timelines, platform updates and our other tools," Meta added.
The tool is most popular among journalists who search across Facebook or Instagram for content relevant to their reporting.
The platform is also popular among social media managers tracking their account performance and comparing themselves to competitors.
Fact-checkers identifying posts that contain misinformation have also been using the feature, as well as researchers analyzing trends across thousands of accounts over time and reporting on how information spreads.
"CrowdTangle tracks influential public accounts and groups across Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit, including all verified users, profiles, and accounts like politicians, journalists, media and publishers, celebrities, sports teams, public figures and more. CrowdTangle also can track 7 days of public Twitter data via CrowdTangle Search and our Chrome Extension. CrowdTangle does not track any private accounts," the platform says on its website.
According to information from Meta, CrowdTangle’s database currently includes over seven million Facebook pages, groups, and verified profiles.
"This includes all public Facebook pages with more than 50K likes (automated via API), all public Facebook groups with 95k+ members, all US-based public groups with 2k+ members, and all verified profiles," the company says.
On Instagram, the platform entails over two million public Instagram accounts including all public Instagram accounts with more than 50,000 followers, as well as all verified accounts.
On Reddit, CrowdTangle has over 20,000 of the most active subreddits.
Facebook acquires CrowdTangle
Facebook acquired the tool in November 2016, made the tool free and expanded access from 300 media partners to more than 10,000, including global sports leagues, local newspapers, digital publishers, music labels, celebrity accounts, and more.
"Starting in 2019, CrowdTangle added research, academic and fact-checking partners, and built tools to help these partners study how public content spreads across Facebook and Instagram. By creating easy-to-use products, CrowdTangle has become a way for outside organizations to have greater transparency into what’s happening on Facebook and Instagram. The hope is that a greater shared understanding around how public content spreads will shape the broader online conversation, and help make information on social media safer, more reliable, and more accurate," CrowdTangle adds.
Currently, the tool tracks publicly available posts sharing data such as when something was posted, the type of post (video, image, text), which Page or public account it was posted from, or which public group it was posted to, how many interactions (likes, reactions, comments, shares) or video views it received and which other public pages or accounts shared it.
