CrowdTangle, a technology owned by Facebook parent company Meta that keeps track of online content. It identifies influencers, measures social performance, and aids publishers in finding excellent content.
All across the world, it is used by publications like newspapers, television stations, internet media outlets, investigative journalists, entertainment businesses, sports teams, and nonprofit organizations.
Publishers who have registered their news Page are eligible to use CrowdTangle completely. Through their employer organization or by registering as a journalist, journalists may be eligible for access. The major surface for news gathering on CrowdTangle is Search, which is accessible to journalists that register.
"CrowdTangle has always been an invaluable tool to cut out the noise of social media and instead hone in on what it is you are looking for," says Pete Grant, Newsquest Media Group's manager of social and audience.
"Having the ability to narrow a search to only relevant places makes that much, much easier to do. It's gold dust to regional newsrooms."
The filter, according to Tim Shore, publisher, and operator of the Toronto-based blogTO, enables his team to swiftly and precisely identify Facebook high-performing material based on their local coverage region that they might have missed otherwise.
But CrowdTangle has been crucial in stifling false information on social media and is apparently going away soon.
No specific date has been specified, but Meta intends to shut down the platform, according to a Thursday Bloomberg article. The CrowdTangle staff has purportedly been dismantled by Meta, who acquired CrowdTangle in 2016, and access for new members was "paused" in January. According to a Meta spokeswoman, the tool will remain accessible at least until this year's US midterm elections in November.
A spokesman for Meta, Erin McPike, told Bloomberg that the business will continue to support misinformation researchers and develop "more meaningful" tools for their use. Meta did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.
CrowdTangle is used by fact-checkers, researchers, and journalists to track the spread of false material online, notably on social media platforms like Meta's Facebook and Instagram. Misinformation on these platforms in the run-up to the midterm elections might have significant political ramifications.
"The bigger thing that people in that [misinformation] universe are trying to do with 2022 is to win the narrative battle," Mike Caulfield, research scientist at the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public, said. "If they are able to convince large swaths of the public that the 2022 elections are illegitimate, then they are more likely to get the sorts of legislative changes that they want."
