American News is a hyperpartisan conservative Facebook page with nearly 5.5 million fans that, at its peak in 2016, generated hundreds of thousands of shares, comments, and reactions for its posts, and drove impressive ad revenue to its website, AmericanNews.com.



But now, two years later, the page's reach and value have declined so much that its American owners resorted to renting it out to an Indian publisher for $5,000 a month so he could share links to websites he runs about American politics.

"They are renting out their page for content marketing," said Sanal, the Indian man who is paying for access to the page. "I thought we would just try for a couple of months and see how it works." He agreed to speak to BuzzFeed News on the condition that his full name was not published.

Sanal and at least one partner run websites about American politics with names such as IndiaNewsMax.com, IndiaRisingNews.com, and SampsonHart.com. His arrangement with the owners of American News violates Facebook's recently updated sponsored content policy, which prohibits page owners from receiving payment to share content unless they helped create the content. In general, Facebook also prohibits page owners from accepting anything of value to drive traffic to a website.

Sanal said he's earned a small profit each month since beginning the arrangement with American News, but it's not enough for him to continue.



"It will end this month and I don't think it is economically viable [to continue]," he said, explaining that the page isn't sending enough traffic to his websites.

Tyler Shapiro and John Crane, the owners of the American News page, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

The decline of American News from one of the best-performing hyperpartisan conservative pages on Facebook to a page-for-rent that can't even earn sufficient revenue for an overseas publisher highlights how much the once-booming hyperpartisan news business has struggled since the 2016 election.

The driving reason for the decline is Facebook's ongoing algorithm tweaks that reduce the reach of pages spreading clickbait and misleading or false content, or that direct users to websites littered with low-quality ads. (American News at times was guilty of all of these offenses.)

Along with American News, other once-prominent and profitable pages have also had to shift their strategy. Rare, a conservative site and associated page launched by Cox Media, announced in March that it was shuttering. Its owners blamed Facebook's algorithm changes. Rare has since been reborn as a site publishing uplifting viral content. The Mr. Conservative page, with 2.1 million fans, now exclusively posts similar uplifting viral content, as does WD Americans Online, a page with 4.2 million fans.

But American News was bigger and more successful than any of these pages, based on Facebook engagement data. A BuzzFeed News analysis published last year looked at the Facebook engagement for 452 right- and left-leaning pages between Jan. 1, 2015, and March 31, 2017. It found that American News had 5 of the 10 top-performing link posts during that period, more than any other page, including juggernauts such as Fox News and Occupy Democrats. The site's biggest link share on Facebook during that period was a story that generated over 960,000 engagements, about Kanye West threatening to leave the country.

Shapiro and Crane, the owners of the site and page, also attracted negative attention for false and misleading content. In 2016 they were called out for publishing a false article claiming that Denzel Washington had endorsed Trump. That article was promoted by Facebook's Trending box, which has since been discontinued.