After leaving Meta, Brandon Silverman, co-founder of Facebook-acquired CrowdTangle, has helped craft a bipartisan bill to boost social networks' transparency
The co-founder of CrowdTangle has been working with Congress on legislation to make tech companies disclose their inner workings. Tweets: @benyt , @lauraedelson2 , @apmckay , @elipariser , @aaschapiro , @wexler , @daveyalba , @karaswisher , @revkin , @taylorhughes , @justinhendrix , @donie , @nytimes , @dmccabe , @digitalshields , @kombiz , @sillyrobin , @donie , @daveyalba , and @adrielhampton See also Mediagazer Tweets: Ben Smith / @benyt : A Former Facebook Executive Pushes to Open Social Media's ‘Black Boxes’ https://www.nytimes.com/... Laura Edelson / @lauraedelson2 : This was an interesting read. For a lot of reasons, I think it's almost inevitable that transparency legislation will be passed this year. I now have confidence that it will be good legislation thanks to the efforts of @brandonsilverm, @persily, @RebekahKTromble, and many others. https://twitter.com/... Andrew McKay / @apmckay : I mean, this “transparency” is what Crowdtangle was great at - before it sold itself to the company that Silverman is complaining about. https://twitter.com/... Eli Pariser / @elipariser : Kudos to @brandonsilverm for this smart regulatory approach and @benyt for covering it. Lots of complicated choices in social media regulation but this ain't one of them. https://www.nytimes.com/... Avi Asher-Schapiro / @aaschapiro : CrowdTangle co-founder Brandon Silverman has left Facebook, is giving interviews, but won't answer questions about his last five years at Facebook. https://www.nytimes.com/... Nu Wexler / @wexler : ["As written, the legislation would apply to Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter and Snap — and would probably, a Senate aide said, also extend to Amazon."] I'm not sure how they justify including Amazon and not actual social platforms like Gab, GETTR, Parler, et al. Davey Alba / @daveyalba : CrowdTangle “had increasingly become an irritant to his bosses, as it revealed the extent to which FB users engaged with hyperpartisan right-wing politics and misleading health information.” Read @brandonsilverm's first interview since departing Facebook https://www.nytimes.com/... Kara Swisher / @karaswisher : This is exactly the right approach — more platform transparency — by former CrowdTangle dude https://www.nytimes.com/... @revkin : “[F]iguring out ways to both help and, in some cases, force, large platforms to be more transparent with news and civic content as it's in the process of being disseminated can ultimately help make social platforms better homes for public discourse.” Follow @brandonsilverm. https://twitter.com/... Taylor Hughes / @taylorhughes : Really excited to see transparency coming forward as a potential treatment for social media's ills. Super clear to me that massive scale should come with this kind of responsibility. // kudos @brandonsilverman https://www.nytimes.com/... Justin Hendrix / @justinhendrix : Good to see @brandonsilverm advising on transparency legislation. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Donie O'Sullivan / @donie : @daveyalba I think the beginning of the end for CrowdTangle was when it sold to Facebook. @nytimes : CrowdTangle's tools painted an unflattering portrait of Facebook, so Facebook disbanded the team that ran it. Now its co-founder is helping to write legislation to force social media companies to share more data, writes our media columnist Ben Smith. https://www.nytimes.com/... David McCabe / @dmccabe : Latest @benyt column is about another Silicon Valley defection to Capitol Hill. And raises another interesting question: What might a law primarily meant to crack open social media reveal about an online retail marketplace? https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Mike Shields / @digitalshields : Wow. Did not know that former FB exec/Crowdtangle founder Brandon Silverman is actually helping regulators craft legislation aimed at helping make social platforms more transparent https://www.nytimes.com/... @benyt Kombiz Lavasany / @kombiz : It's so clear facebook hates crowdtangle. I've asked on behalf of large civic organizations for a deeper level of access for years that used to be a no brainer and have been told that no, no one is being added on. https://twitter.com/... @sillyrobin : Helluva way to kick off '22 🥂🎉 “Facebook may live to regret the energy it spent working to shut Mr. Silverman's window into the platform. But I suspect many of us will be grateful to rest the high-stakes debate about social media on shared facts, available in real time.” https://twitter.com/... Donie O'Sullivan / @donie : CrowdTangle has been a pain in Facebook's ass since the company acquired it. Its founder @brandonsilverm recently quit, but still seems adamant to remain a pain in Facebook's ass. He talks to @benyt. https://www.nytimes.com/... Davey Alba / @daveyalba : I will also say that *anecdotally* using CrowdTangle in the last week has become near-impossible. The tool is extremely buggy now—it times out, dies in the middle of searches. I've heard from researchers & others who say it's probably the beginning of the end for CrowdTangle. https://twitter.com/... Adriel Hampton / @adrielhampton : CrowdTangle was the No. 1 social media monitoring and improvemen tool for activists and Facebook killed it because it exposed their right-wing bias. Facebook/Meta is a monumental disaster for society. https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer