Freedom House information integrity and produced a chilling effect in the broader community of US experts on the topic. Individual experts and institutions have reported scaling down their activities and limiting public discussion of their work to avoid similar hostility or hefty legal fees. Companies also reduced access to data about activities on their platforms, hampering the ability of fact-checkers and independent researchers to study the information space. In August 2024, Meta shut down CrowdTangle, a critical tool that allowed real-time analysis of content across Facebook and Instagram, and replaced it with a far more limited alternative. In September 2023, X banned nearly all scraping on its site, cutting off a primary source of data for researchers. The move built on an earlier change that locked access to X’s interface for researchers behind an exorbitantly @freedomhouse Pressure on independent experts in the United States has left people less informed about influence operations ahead of the November elections. expensive paywall. Researchers’ access to platform data allows them to uncover harassment and disinformation campaigns, unmask the actors behind them, and flag key trends on social media. Limiting access to this information makes it more difficult to design effective policies and technical interventions for strengthening internet freedom. freedomhouse.org 13