Hello,

Meta has announced it will be abandoning CrowdTangle, its industry leading transparency tool, this August - in the middle of the biggest election year on record.¹

CrowdTangle is used by thousands of researchers, journalists and advocates to monitor political disinformation and hate speech on Facebook and Instagram. Its dashboards have allowed these watchdogs to monitor and analyze the spread of viral public content in real time. And this, in turn, allowed them to quickly identify harmful trends and abuse.

The decision to kill this crucial tool without an equivalent replacement couldn’t come at a worse time: Elections affecting approximately half of the world’s population are taking place this year. Meta’s irresponsible decision poses a direct threat to our movement’s ability to safeguard the integrity of these elections - but we can still stop it.

Together with 176 other organizations, researchers and journalists, Mozilla is calling on Meta to rethink the decision.²And Meta’s already feeling the pressure: Their spokesperson issued a defensive rebuke after seeing our collective call featured in the press.³

If we come together to ramp up the pressure now, we can push Meta to rethink their plans, maintain CrowdTangle during this election year and protect election integrity. Will you join the campaign?

Add your name to our petition calling on Meta to maintain CrowdTangle until 2025 and ensure election transparency and integrity during this critical year.

For years, CrowdTangle has been experts’ go-to tool for real-time platform transparency. It has become a lifeline for understanding how disinformation, hate speech and voter-suppression content have spread on Facebook.⁴ It’s also been used by researchers and human rights groups to study how tech platforms influence war crimes, human rights violations, public health crises, and natural disasters.

Meta wants to replace CrowdTangle with new tools – but currently, these tools don’t provide the transparency, insights and search capabilities offered by CrowdTangle and, most importantly, currently only a small number of researchers have access to it.⁵

Meta’s new research tools might eventually become an effective replacement for CrowdTangle, but in this crucial election year it’s not yet fit for purpose as a tool to monitor elections.

That is why 176 signatories of our open letter – including a Nobel prize laureate, former Meta employees and CrowdTangle’s co-founder Brandon Silverman – are asking Meta to:

• Keep CrowdTangle functioning until January 2025.
• Rapidly onboard all current CrowdTangle users that are focused on election integrity to their new tool (Content Library), including civil society organizations, researchers and news outlets - directly or through an accelerated application process.
• Engage in regular consultations with the global Crowdtangle community to ensure that the Content Library meets their needs, including maintaining full Crowdtangle functionality, before the tool is deprecated.
• As soon as possible, both the Content Library and CrowdTangle should add data about any election-related labels that are attached to public content by Meta, especially fact-checking and voter-interference.

What we need right now are effective tools to track content during these global election periods, and to protect people before, during, and immediately following elections. Together, we can push Meta to keep CrowdTangle running and ensure election integrity. Will you join the campaign?

Tell Meta to maintain CrowdTangle during this critical period of global elections and protect election integrity.

Thank you for all you do for the internet, and to protect elections around the world.

Claire Pershan
EU Advocacy Lead
Mozilla

More Information:

1. CrowdTangle: Important Update to CrowdTangle. Published March 2024.

2. Mozilla Foundation: Open Letter To Meta. 14 March 2024.

3. Some examples of the press coverage:

1. Fast Company: Former CrowdTangle CEO has questions about Meta’s decision to close the research tool during an election year. 23 March 2024.
2. Wired: Meta Kills a Crucial Transparency Tool at the Worst Possible Time. 25 March 2024.

4. Rappler: Why possible loss of CrowdTangle worries fact-checkers and disinformation researchers. 22 July 2022.

5. For more information about the differences between CrowdTangle and the current Content Library – Mozilla Foundation: Open Letter To Meta. 14 March 2024.