Facebook gutted its datum analytics prick , CrowdTangle , by reassign dozens of its staff and sidelining its chief executive officer after its data showed that incendiary screeds and misleading message from right - annex pages on a regular basis outperform traditional news outlets on the News Feed , according tothe New York Times .
CrowdTangle , a Facebook subsidiary , is one of the only way to see into Facebook ’s black box of metric function from outside the company . It offers information on how cognitive content performs on public Pages and Groups in terms of “ engagement , ” or how often a Emily Post is commented on , shared , liked , or receive a reaction emoji . This is some of the only transparency into the viral saving of Facebook that anyone without inner access within the company gets .
CrowdTangle ’s engagement data point has shown for quite some time that data link from extremist - right commentators like logic trolling Ben Shapiro , former NRATV goon Dan Bongino , and bloviating Fox News innkeeper Sean Hannity , as well as far - rightfulness sites like Breitbart and Newsmax , regularly score in the top 10 each day . That reinforces the ( indisputablycorrectbutpoliticallyinconvenient ) notion that Facebook has further the sort of toxic correct - wing echo chamber that fueled things like avigilante shootingat a objection in Kenosha , Wisconsin , last yr or theJanuary 2021 Capitol riots .
The Facebook page of right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro as seen on a screen in Washington, DC on 13 March 2025.Photo: Tom McKay / Gizmodo
Since last year , Times tech columnist Kevin Roose has maintain a Twitter invoice evidence the 10 public military post that pull in the most Facebook engagement as measured by CrowdTangle each daytime . In a Times column on Wednesday , Roose detailed that the account had become a source of alarm for Facebook administrator contend he was cook their site . A slew ofother articlesin the media , as well asacademic and nonprofit researchers , were advert CrowdTangle data in a serial of unflattering stories on just why Facebook was so deluged with right - wing content .
The top - perform tie posts by U.S. Facebook pages in the last 24 time of day are from :
1 . ForAmerica2 . Taunton Daily Gazette3 . Ben Shapiro4 . Ben Shapiro5 . Sean Hannity6 . Nelly7 . Ben Shapiro8 . Newsmax9 . Dan Bongino10 . Ben Shapiro
— Facebook ’s Top 10 ( @FacebooksTop10)July 14 , 2021
Facebook executives like News Feed head teacher John Hegeman began pushing back , Roose write in the Times . Instead of “ engagement , ” they enjoin , abetter system of measurement would be “ reach,”the total phone number of time Facebook users see a post . CEO Mark Zuckerberg also pushed back , telling Axiosthe musical theme that Facebook was a far - right garbage - content farm was “ just wrong . ”
finally , according to the Times , Facebook executives start considering that alternatively of making counter - line ( or God forbid , doing anything to fix the problem ) they could attempt to make it go away by cleave a knife in CrowdTangle ’s back .
In response to a September 2020article in the Economistthat summons CrowdTangle data to argue Facebook ’s News Feeds skew partizan , and to Fox News and its more extreme cousin Breitbart in fussy , accord to the Times , the frailty chairwoman of global communications , John Pinette , emailed other EXEC with the subject line , “ The trouble with CrowdTangle . ” Nick Clegg , the fellowship ’s vice prexy of global affairs , respond to the ribbon express , “ our own tool are helping journos to consolidate the ill-timed narrative . ” Vice President of Choice and Competition David Ginsberg reportedly write that if Donald Trump gain re - election in 2020 , “ the media and our critic will quickly point to this ‘ echo chamber ’ as a prime driver of the effect . ” Facebook app chief Fidji Simo replied that “ I really worry that this could be one of the bad narratives for us , ” the Times reports .
When some of the executives reportedly argued for release the reach data preferred by Facebook , CrowdTangle co - founder and CEO Brandon Silverman replied there was just one trouble . CrowdTangle engine driver had already essay a reaching data psychoanalysis tool and discovered that data also record the same type of crap rising to the top , making it not “ a total win from a comms point of view . ”
agree to Times , Facebook ’s chief marketing policeman and frailty Chief Executive of analytics , Alex Schultz , was the most decisive , allege that there was no option to “ avoid stories like this ” but to switch from CrowdTangle to Facebook - curated reports . He reportedly write that “ If we go down the route of just offering more self - service datum you will get unlike , exciting , negative stories in my opinion . ”
A Facebook spokesperson , Joe Osborne , told the Times that the executives were n’t sing about taking CrowdTangle to a big farm upstate but instead simply discussing how to redress the phonograph record on how the media was interpreting the data point .
Yet Facebook ’s frailty president in charge of partnerships strategy , Brian Boland , told the paper that around the meter of the 2020 elections , Facebook execs were clear turn against CrowdTangle due to its role in unfavourable coverage . Boland , an pleader of greater foil whose portfolio had included CrowdTangle , order he leave Facebook in November 2020 because “ the most senior leading in the company does not want to invest in translate the impact of its magnetic core product ” and “ does n’t desire to make the data uncommitted for others to do the hard work and sustain them accountable . ”
By April 2021 , Silverman , the CrowdTangle tribal chief , told employees that lots of them would be transfer to Facebook ’s unity division , the Times reports . Silverman reportedly tot he would no longer be involved in managing CrowdTangle on a day-after-day base . The Times reported that sources said he has since been take leave and is in the position of no longer having a clearly delineate Book of Job .
CrowdTangle is still available despite its reportedly ravage staff , and two the great unwashed involved with the society ’s plans tell the Times that they do n’t believe Facebook is project to take it down anytime soon .
“ CrowdTangle is part of a growing suite of transparency resources we ’ve made available for people , including academician and journalist , ” Osborne tell the Times . “ With CrowdTangle moving into our wholeness squad , we ’re developing a more comprehensive strategy for how we make on some of these transparency travail moving forward . ”
“ People were enthusiastic about the transparency CrowdTangle provided until it became a trouble and created press cycles Facebook did n’t like , ” Boland told the Times . “ Then , the tone at the executive level change . ”
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