Facebook dismantles CrowdTangle, starts war on data usage

CrowdTangle is the only tool available on Facebook to display general profile metrics, something fundamental for media and content generators who seek to reach their audiences with the best possible material. But Mark Zuckerberg’s company is reduce the staff working with this platform, which reduces the information which previously offered the social network and could make it more opaque.

This week Brandon Silverman, co-founder and CEO of CrowdTangle, a company acquired by Facebook in 2016, gathered dozens of employees to tell them they were “separated”. This service operated almost independently within Zuckerberg’s company, but is now reportedly part of the Social Network’s Integrity Team, the group that tries to remove disinformation and hate speech from the platform.

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With this measure, specialists believe that tech giant seeks to “hide” data generated by far-right campaigns American, the most viral within the social network. But the truth is that this measure also affects media around the world that rely on this information to reach the readers and they can also analyze global and viral trends.

“I think this is part of a series of decisions that Facebook has made. What Despite the fact that his public discourse is that he cares about transparency and works to improve it, in reality he is not interested in that third parties (and less journalists) can access in such a way. independent to information about what is happening on the platform, always wants to organize what you make public», He explained to TN Tecno Ana Laura Pérez, journalist and Head of Digital Product from El País, Uruguay.

According to Tom McKay of Gizmodo, CrowdTangle is “one of the few ways to look at the “black box” of Facebook metrics from outside the company”.

“It’s important to note that when Facebook organizes information, it’s often based on Cambridge Analytica’s repeated track record or video replicas that have been increased by almost 300%, among others. Many Facebook configuration changes in recent years have gone in the same direction. That you can’t look for anything in there, ”Pérez added in this regard.

CrowdTangle, generally used by specialists in networks and metrics of news portals, allows to analyze the functioning of the content on the pages and public groups, the amount of “engagement” – interactions – with the readers, which is measured in “likes”, comments and shares, among others.

“CrowdTangle has been, since before the takeover by Facebook, a key tool for media and journalists around the world. It offers the possibility of obtaining metrics on thousands of Facebook and Instagram pages (both media and celebrities), knowing which were the ratings, photos or videos that have the most interactions (likes, comments or shares), at the same time as in the recent years it was essential for different journalistic coverage such as elections or sporting events. If a politician posts something on his social media, CrowdTangle allows us to see if that post has reached many people in one way or another, ”says Federico Aikawa, deputy editor of social media at TN.

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“This is one of the few transparent things within the corporate viral economy that you can access without access privileges,” McKay said.

Aikawa agrees: “It’s the only tool that makes everything that happens within these two social networks a little more transparent. But lately some changes have started to be noticed. Los Reels, Instagram’s biggest bet to compete with TikTok, is not among its metrics. And due to the time that has passed since the creation of the Reels (in August 2020) I doubt that they will be incorporated ”.

CrowdTangle is still available despite a personal fit, allegedly devastated, and two people involved in the company’s plans told the Time They don’t think Facebook is planning to take it down anytime soon.

From the company, in consultation with TN Tecno, they sent the following statement.

“The goal of our leadership team is to make our products and tools do more. Regarding the reorganization, the objective was to better integrate the CrowdTangle team into the product team focused on transparency. CrowdTangle is one of a growing set of transparency resources that we have made available to the general public, academics and journalists. We’re working on standardizing different approaches to initiatives like our Quarterly Community Standards Compliance Report, Ads Library, Facebook’s Research and Transparency Platform, and our new Transparency Center. With the addition of CrowdTangle to our integrity team, we are developing a more comprehensive strategy for our transparency work, ”said a spokesperson for the Facebook company.

The virality of the right and fake news

A survey in March found that Facebook publishes spreading fake news of far-right political ideology are those who get greater user engagement, and also that these contents suffer less sanctions in the event of disinformation than those of another political nature.

The analysis carried out by Cybersecurity for Democracy, from New York University, investigated Facebook posts featuring polarized political ideologies, with and without disinformation.

In all 8.6 million posts were analyzed between August 2020 and January 2021, particularly focused on the United States and using external tools such as CrowdTangle to determine the interactions of each post, which the platform does not share. For the classification of disinformation, the source was used Checking the facts on media bias.

This happened again in recent days, when a Twitter account that analyzes the most “successful” posts in the United States included four from Ben Shapiro in a top 10.

Shapiro is a conservative lawyer and political commentator, which supports among other things the ban on abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, is against equal marriage and defends the possession of weapons.

This Twitter profile is managed by a columnist from Time, Kevin Roose, who posted an article on Wednesday in which he detailed that his Twitter profile generated “consternation” among Facebook executives, who feel that they “do not represent” the social network.

The problem? When they went to the engineers at CrowdTangle to try and change that perception, they said it was correct: these were the most viral posts and they couldn’t change this data.

According to Time, Facebook executives would have decided “Cut” CrowdTangle, by removing employees, so that it cannot offer this type of information to journalists and the media.

The same outlet said Alex Schultz, vice president of analysis and chief marketing officer, was the most critical of the results. He said that there was no way to “avoid this kind of story” unless they switched from CrowTangle to the reports made by Facebook. “In my opinion, if we offer self-service data, we are going to receive different, exciting and negative stories,” he said in an internal statement, which coincides with what Ana Laura Pérez said. in TN.

“Any change or cancellation of the CrowdTangle project will not only affect Facebook’s transparency, but also blind the media and journalists about what happens in a world with more and more fake news and disinformationIn addition to not having access to compare performance data between pages. In short, CrowdTangle is the big thermometer of what’s going on in the two most important social networks on the planet, ”Aikawa concluded.