Big Tech is shutting out our access to crucial data. Why does Congress allow it?

By Jamie Neikrie, Megan Shahi and Ellen Jacobs

Meta Platforms, Alphabet and other tech giants are limiting or removing transparency tools such as CrowdTangle

Meta Platform's dismantling CrowdTangle in the middle of an election year has been met with confusion and concern.

Tech giant Meta Platforms Inc. (META) has quietly dismantled one of its most important tools for public-interest monitoring and oversight. CrowdTangle, a data-tracking tool Meta purchased in 2016, made it possible for approved academics, journalists, election observers and researchers to study activity on Meta's social media platforms - namely Instagram and Facebook.

Since its launch, this tool has allowed researchers to track Islamic State propaganda content; aided journalists in identifying local voices for key stories such as the COVID-19 epidemic; and helped researchers analyze Russian-backed influence operations in Africa. In 2020, The New York Times deemed it "perhaps the most effective transparency tool in the history of social media."

Meta's recent decision to sunset CrowdTangle in the middle of a global election year has been met with confusion and concern. In a survey of tech researchers worldwide, 88% expressed concern that the shutdown would impede their work or cause them to abandon key research projects altogether. But despite letters from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, along with 181 civil-society groups, Meta moved forward with its plan to end CrowdTangle, replacing it with a less-powerful tool called the Meta Content Library, which fewer outsiders will be allowed to access.

Access to Meta's new Content Library excludes all for-profit newsrooms.

Despite Meta's claims, this new tool is far from an adequate replacement. It lacks much of the functionality that made CrowdTangle effective: It offers no historical data for posts, no way to track reach and engagement over time, and no ability to track posts and engagement from public figures. Access to the Content Library excludes all for-profit newsrooms, and according to survey results, only a small percentage of researchers who qualify for access have been granted it. Put plainly, this change no longer gives most journalists, researchers and advocates who had access to CrowdTangle data the ability to glean the same insights from Meta platforms.

Meta isn't the only tech giant that's been limiting access to critical data tools. In February 2023, Alphabet's Google (GOOGL) laid off at least a third of the team behind Jigsaw, a tool that helped track misinformation and radicalization on Google and YouTube. A few months later, Twitter (now X) changed its policies and skyrocketed the fee for its research API to more than $42,000 a month - a prohibitive cost for most researchers and academic institutions. This decision jeopardized more than 250 projects, including other tools that relied on API access. Former Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey referred to the decision as the "worst thing we did."

The reason these companies are limiting or removing transparency tools at such a crucial time for the information ecosystem is clear - they want to avoid accountability. Why is Congress letting them?

Right now, Big Tech companies are facing opposition from both sides of the congressional aisle. This year, members of Congress rapidly passed a bill requiring TikTok to divest from its parent company or risk being banned nationally. Bipartisan proposals from powerful committee chairs would end Big Tech's liability protections and dramatically undercut their surveillance model by enacting data privacy protections for all Americans. Perhaps most importantly, the Senate recently passed a landmark kids online safety package by an overwhelming vote of 91-3 - a margin rarely seen in the current U.S. political climate.

The way Big Tech currently operates is harming users and requires stronger regulation.

This activity signals a wider understanding among members of Congress that the way Big Tech currently operates is harming users and requires stronger regulation. But these proposals largely skip over a crucial first step - consistent transparency, accountability and oversight.

Many of these proposals include some transparency provisions, but none would foster the same level of oversight that exists for other major U.S. industries including pharmaceuticals, commercial aviation or workplace safety - or oversight that the European Union has already enacted. None of the proposals would provide safe-harbor protections for public-interest researchers or create a framework for researchers to study the design and operations of major tech platforms.

These transparency reforms are almost universally supported, but they're rarely a top issue. They don't garner media attention or give politicians fodder for campaign trail speeches.

But without this accountability and transparency, it's virtually impossible to ensure compliance with other tech legislation or measure its efficacy. Tools like researcher access and safe harbor protections, meaningful content and advertising libraries and annual, independent audits would make oversight of the tech industry clear and effective. These tools would help policymakers begin to shift the power balance away from the largest companies and their billionaire owners, and back to the users they claim to serve.

For the past two decades, Congress has thrown up its hands and said, "We trust you" to Big Tech, giving the industry free reign to self-regulate despite overwhelming evidence that these companies have never acted in our best interests. If Congress truly wants to hold Big Tech accountable, it must start by opening the black box.

Jamie Neikrie is a legislative manager for democracy and technology at Issue One. Megan Shahi is the director of technology policy at the Center for American Progress. Ellen Jacobs is a digital policy manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

More: Meta shutters misinformation-tracking tool CrowdTangle despite pleas from researchers, journalists

Plus: Social Security numbers and billions of personal records potentially exposed in data breach: How to protect yourself

-Jamie Neikrie -Megan Shahi -Ellen Jacobs

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09-07-24 0942ET

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