Senators Coons, Cassidy, colleagues write bipartisan, bicameral letter to Meta urging continued access to transparency tool

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.), and 15 of their congressional colleagues sent a bipartisan and bicameral letter to Meta raising concerns about Meta's decision to end access to CrowdTangle, a Meta-owned transparency tool that has allowed researchers and journalists to view and study public content on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms on a wide range of issues, including foreign influence campaigns, terrorist threats, and mental health.

The letter details significant limitations in the Meta Content Library, Meta's replacement for CrowdTangle. It therefore urges Meta to continue access to CrowdTangle for at least another six months while additional functionality and access is developed for the Meta Content Library.

"In light of threats to our national security, growing concern about the effect of social media on our children and their mental health, the advent and proliferation of generative artificial intelligence, and important elections coming up in the United States and elsewhere in the world, Meta (like other platforms) has a responsibility to ensure that the public, independent researchers, journalists, and policymakers can study and address the impact that platforms and their algorithms are having in these and other dimensions, in both positive and negative ways," the lawmakers wrote.

The lawmakers also called on Meta to answer a number of questions as to why the company is ending the tool at such a pivotal time for social and digital media use. After August 14, 2024, CrowdTangle will no longer be accessible, even as disinformation and other risks are expected to spike in the period before the November elections.

"Over the past several years, CrowdTangle has been an important step towards such transparency for public content on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms, and Meta deserves credit for making this tool available at a time when many of its counterparts offer no comparable alternative," the lawmakers continued. "CrowdTangle data has been the basis of hundreds of academic research papers (including in Nature and Science) and has been referenced in thousands of news articles by journalists reporting on social media and other topics. Some of us cosponsor the bipartisan Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (S.1876), which, among other things, would require platforms to offer a tool similar to CrowdTangle in recognition of the value that this kind of transparency provides."

In addition to Senators Coons and Cassidy, the letter is signed by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.). U.S. Representatives Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), Neal Dunn, M.D. (R-Fla.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), Sean Casten (D-Ill.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) also signed the letter.

Last year, Senators Coons, Cassidy, Klobuchar, Cornyn, Blumenthal, and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) introduced the bipartisan Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA), a bill that would require social media companies to share more data with the public and researchers. A section of PATA would specifically require major platforms to make a tool like CrowdTangle available to study public content.

You can read the full letter here.