PoliticusUSA

PoliticusUSA's editorial mission is to convey "news, political commentary & analysis from a liberal point of view".{{cite news |last1=Greico |first1=Elizabeth |title=Few sites linked to in immigration-related tweets explicitly stated a political ideology or 'anti-establishment' focus |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2018/01/29/few-sites-linked-to-in-immigration-related-tweets-explicitly-stated-a-political-ideology-or-anti-establishment-focus/ |access-date=April 10, 2023 |work=Pew Research Center |date=January 29, 2018}} While the site aligns itself with a clear political agenda, it rejects the notion that it is politically biased.{{Cite journal |last1=Robertson |first1=Craig T. |last2=Mourão |first2=Rachel R. |date=2020-09-13 |title=Faking Alternative Journalism? An Analysis of Self-Presentations of "Fake News" Sites |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21670811.2020.1743193 |journal=Digital Journalism |language=en |volume=8 |issue=8 |pages=13 |doi=10.1080/21670811.2020.1743193 |issn=2167-0811}}

Various academic studies and journalistic reports have identified PoliticusUSA as a left-leaning publisher of hyperpartisan content;Sources describing PoliticusUSA's content as either "hyperpartisan" or "highly polarized" include:

• {{cite conference| last1=Horne |first1=Benjamin D. |title=Rating Reliability and Bias in News Articles: Does AI Assistance Help Everyone?|date=May 16, 2019 |book-title=Proceedings of the Thirteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media |volume=13 |pages=247–256 |isbn=978-1-57735-806-0 |publisher=Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence |url=https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/download/3226/3094/}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Faris |first1=Robert |title=Partisanship, Impeachment, and the Democratic Primaries: American Political Discourse, January – February 2020 |journal=Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society |date=October 22, 2020 |issue=2020–8 |page=24 |ssrn=3717670 |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3717670 | quote=There are some partisan media sources that primarily serve left-oriented audiences, for example, Raw Story. Others fall into the hyperpartisan class, such as PoliticusUSA and Occupy Democrats, as their attention draws almost exclusively from the left.}}
• {{cite news |last1=Elgin |first1=Ben |title=Facebook's Battle Against Fake News Notches an Uneven Scorecard |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-24/facebook-s-battle-against-fake-news-notches-an-uneven-scorecard |access-date=April 15, 2023 |work=Bloomberg |date=April 24, 2018|quote=To be sure, some left-wing hyper-partisan sites have also seen falling Facebook traffic. For instance, PoliticusUSA is garnering 80 percent fewer Facebook engagements than it did last summer, according to BuzzSumo.}}
• {{cite web |last1=Che |first1=Xunru |title=Fake News in the News: An Analysis of Partisan Coverage of the Fake News Phenomenon |url=https://redirect.cs.umbc.edu/courses/graduate/691/spring21/pdf/3272973.3274079.pdf |website=CSCW’18 Companion |publisher=University of Maryland, Baltimore County |access-date=April 10, 2023}} "misleading", "unreliable", or "fake" news; and clickbait.Sources describing PoliticusUSA's content as "clickbait" or classifying PoliticusUSA as a "clickbait" site include:
• {{cite journal |last1=Glenski |first1=Maria |title=Propagation from Deceptive News Sources Who Shares, How Much, How Evenly, and How Quickly? |journal=IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems |date=2018 |page=3 |url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=%2Fielaam%2F6570650%2F8566185%2F8542941-aam.pdf&authDecision=-203 }}
• {{cite web |title=Fact Checking & Media Literacy: "Fake News" |url=https://libguides.njstatelib.org/facts/fake_news |website=njstatelib.org |publisher=New Jersey State Library |access-date=April 10, 2023 }}
• {{cite thesis |last=Glenski |first=Maria |date=2019 |title=Social News Consumption in Systems with Crowd-Sourced Curation |url=https://curate.nd.edu/downloads/k0698626n96 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221122135641/https://curate.nd.edu/downloads/k0698626n96 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2022-11-22 |page=69 |degree=PhD |chapter= |publisher=University of Notre Dame |docket= |oclc= |access-date=January 3, 2024 }}

• {{cite news |title=Special Report: Beware of Fake News |url=https://6abc.com/fake-news/1619293/ |access-date=April 15, 2023 |work=WPVI-TV |date=November 21, 2016 }}
• {{cite web |last1=Samory |first1=Mattia |title=Characterizing the Social Media News Sphere through User Co-Sharing Practices |url=https://faculty.washington.edu/tmitra/public/papers/icwsm2020-SocialMedia-NewsSphere.pdf |website=University of Washington |publisher=Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence |date=2020 |access-date=December 31, 2023 }} Writing for Vice, Mike Pearl has described PoliticusUSA as "so one-sided that it's hard to be fully informed if that's all you read",{{cite news |last1=Pearl |first1=Mike |title=No, Kid Rock Isn't on the Verge of Becoming a Senator |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/no-kid-rock-isnt-on-the-verge-of-becoming-a-senator/ |access-date=April 10, 2023 |work=Vice |date=August 26, 2017}} while Slate's Ben Mathis-Lilley has characterized PoliticusUSA as a "low-budget" site "loaded with browser-murdering junk ads".{{cite news |last1=Matthis-Lilley |first1=Ben |title=Let's All Stop Mindlessly Clicking and Sharing Zombie Links |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/deadspin-firings-zombie-brand-spam.html |access-date=January 1, 2024 |work=Slate |date=October 30, 2019}} Dante Ramos, a Boston Globe columnist, described a 2016 PoliticusUSA column titled "“Obama Just Annihilated Donald Trump with the Whole World Watching" as "clickbait" and noted it was among a type of story that "never live up to their billing".{{cite news |last1=Ramos |first1=Dante |title=Memo to partisans: Sharing wishful-thinking clickbait doesn't help |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/08/01/michelle-obama-vaporizes-donald-trump-with-wishful-thinking-clickbait/ysCCwLycQxLCmtoar76QgN/story.html |access-date=January 3, 2024 |work=Boston Globe |date=August 1, 2016}}

PoliticusUSA has published health and medical misinformation. For instance, a 2015 article on the site claimed that the National Institutes of Health discovered marijuana "kills cancer", an assertion rated as False by Snopes,{{cite news |last1=Kasprak |first1=Alex |title=Did the National Cancer Institute 'Finally Admit' That Marijuana Kills Cancer? |url=https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-nci-admit-marijuana-kills-cancer/ |access-date=April 10, 2023 |work=Snopes |date=June 4, 2018}}{{Cite journal |last1=Zeng |first1=Huai-Kuan |last2=Wu |first2=Tai-Yee |last3=Atkin |first3=David J. |date=2023-01-02 |title=Check the Report and Comments: The Veracity Assessment of Unfamiliar News on Social Media |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21670811.2022.2079541 |journal=Digital Journalism |language=en |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=161–180 |doi=10.1080/21670811.2022.2079541 |issn=2167-0811|doi-access=free }} while a 2020 article claimed that the entire population of Oklahoma who took a COVID-19 test, tested positive for the virus, which PolitiFact graded False.{{cite news |last1=Kertscher |first1=Tom |title="Oklahoma 100% coronavirus test rate after Trump Tulsa rally." |url=https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/02/facebook-posts/no-oklahoma-didnt-have-100-covid-positive-test-rat/ |access-date=April 10, 2023 |work=PolitiFact |date=June 29, 2020}}

Other stories on PoliticusUSA have also been discredited by fact checkers and mainstream media. For example, in 2018, according to Bloomberg, the site "misleadingly reported ... [Donald] Trump asked for the constitution to be changed so he can be president for 16 years" The previous year, PoliticusUSA reported that "Senior White House officials" stated the 2017 Shayrat missile strike was "intended to make Trump look strong", a claim Snopes classified as False.{{cite news |last1=Emery |first1=David |title=White House Admits Syria Missile Attack Was a Publicity Stunt to Make Trump Look Good? |url=https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/white-house-syria-publicity/ |access-date=January 1, 2024 |work=Snopes |date=April 8, 2017}} Also in 2017, PoliticusUSA published a story that claimed "the Russians" had created a fake Bernie Sanders Facebook fan page, a story The Observer described as "fake news".{{cite news |last1=Sainato |first1=Michael |title=Rachel Maddow Asserts Russian Government Incited 'Bot Attack' on Sanders Groups |url=https://observer.com/2017/03/rachel-maddow-russian-government-facebook-bernie-sanders/ |access-date=January 3, 2024 |work=The Observer |date=March 22, 2017}}{{cite news |last1=Easley |first1=Jason |title=Liberals Fight for America |url=https://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/21/liberals-fight-america-rachel-maddow-exposes-fake-russian-bernie-sanders-page.html |access-date=January 3, 2024 |work=PoliticusUSA |date=March 21, 2017|archive-date=January 4, 2024|archive-url=https://archive.today/20240104064023/https://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/21/liberals-fight-america-rachel-maddow-exposes-fake-russian-bernie-sanders-page.html}}

In 2018, PoliticusUSA re-reported a story from The Guardian that alleged Paul Manafort met with Julian Assange in the embassy of Ecuador in the United Kingdom, a meeting both Manafort and Assange denied taking place. The claims in the story were criticized by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting for, according to researcher Benjamin Horne, "relying on anonymous sources, not providing any verifiable details, and being, in general, unbelievable given the high level of surveillance in the area surrounding the embassy".{{cite journal |last1=Adalı |first1=Sibel |title=Different Spirals of Sameness: A Study of Content Sharing in Mainstream and Alternative Media |journal=Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media |date=2019 |volume=13 |page=265 |doi=10.1609/icwsm.v13i01.3227 |url=https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/3227/3095|arxiv=1904.01534 }}{{cite thesis|degree=PhD |last=Horne|first=Benjamin |date=2020|title=Robust News Veracity Detection |publisher=Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute University|url=https://dspace.rpi.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13015/2533/180091_Horne_rpi_0185E_11660.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y}} In a later investigation of the story, Slate described it as "journalistic malpractice" and riddled with "serious problems"; The Intercept concluded there was no reason to believe the story was true.{{cite news |last1=MacLeod |first1=Alan |title=The Manafort-Assange meeting that wasn't: A case study in journalistic malpractice |url=https://www.salon.com/2018/12/07/the-manafort-assange-meeting-that-wasnt-a-case-study-in-journalistic-malpractice/ |access-date=April 10, 2023 |work=Slate |date=December 7, 2018}}{{cite news |last1=Greenwald |first1=Glen |author-link=Glenn Greenwald |date=November 27, 2018 |title=It Is Possible Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange. If True, There Should Be Ample Video and Other Evidence Showing This. |url=https://theintercept.com/2018/11/27/it-is-possible-paul-manafort-visited-julian-assange-if-true-there-should-be-ample-video-and-other-evidence-showing-this/ |access-date=April 11, 2023 |work=The Intercept}}

During the time period May 1, 2015 to November 7, 2016, posts on PoliticusUSA that were shared to Twitter and Facebook were among the most-accessed U.S. political content.{{cite book |last1=Benkler |first1=Yochai |title=Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics |date=2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford, United Kingdom |isbn=978-0190923631 |pages=269–288 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780190923624.003.0009 |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190923624.003.0009}} A 2017 study by Harvard researchers found that PoliticusUSA articles received "substantially more attention on social media than they receive inlinks from open web media".{{cite book |title=Partisanship, Propaganda and Disinformation |date=August 2017 |publisher=Berkman Klein Center |page=15 |url=https://cyber.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.harvard.edu/files/2017-08_electionES_2.pdf |access-date=April 10, 2023}} In the summer of 2018, PoliticusUSA traffic coming through Facebook had fallen roughly 80 percent, year over year, after Facebook began demoting from newsfeeds sites "repeatedly dinged by fact-checkers".{{cite news |last1=Elgin |first1=Ben |title=Facebook's Battle Against Fake News Notches an Uneven Scorecard |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-24/facebook-s-battle-against-fake-news-notches-an-uneven-scorecard |access-date=April 15, 2023 |work=Bloomberg |date=April 24, 2018}}

As part of a 2020 study, researchers from the Polytechnic University of Milan found that the virality on Twitter of posts by PoliticusUSA and Breitbart outweighed all other sources examined in their research for reach and impact.{{cite journal |last1=Ceri |first1=Stefano |title=A multi-layer approach to disinformation detection in US and Italian news spreading on Twitter |journal=EPJ Data Science |date=23 November 2020 |volume=9 |issue=35 |doi=10.1140/epjds/s13688-020-00253-8 |url=https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds/s13688-020-00253-8 |access-date=April 10, 2023|hdl=11311/1154006 |hdl-access=free }}

• Gateway Pundit
• Palmer Report

{{reflist}}

Category:American political websites

Category:Fake news websites

Category:Internet properties established in 2009