The Demise of CrowdTangle and What It Means for Independent Technology Research

A topic we returned to often in this podcast is the dire need for independent technology researchers to have access to platform data. Without it, we cannot understand the extent of the harms and effects of social media on people and on society, and we cannot understand the limits of those harms. This makes it difficult to respond in acute moments such as elections, and to understand issues such as the relationship between tech platforms and social cohesion, or mental health, or any number of the other issues policymakers care about. In this episode, Justin Hendrix speaks with two people on the front lines of the fight to secure access to data, including advocating for Meta to do better in light of the impending deprecation of CrowdTangle, a tool used by researchers study Meta's products, including Facebook and Instagram. They are:Brandi Guerkink, the executive director of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, andClaire Pershan, EU advocacy lead at the Mozilla Foundation.