The downside to cracking down on "fake news"

So...as we know, "fake news" has been a hot topic lately. The left is upset that fake news on the right has cost them the election, and now some social media sites like facebook are discussing cracking down on it. However, there's a problem with this. What constitutes "fake news"? It makes sense that in theory, fake news is news not substantiated by facts but makes up conspiracy theories, and that these sites should be censored from social media to stop them from spreading. But at the same time, such crackdown on "fake news" often seems ideological in nature. Caitlyn Johnstone, a Bernie supporter who writes a lot of pro Bernie and anti establishment stuff, has run into multiple brushes with the censor on social media, having sites she contributes on be deemed "fake news."

And this is in essence why cracking down on fake news does more harm than good. When you deem some news as "fake", often, the establishment and its affiliates target websites that criticize their narratives. The establishment is the trusted name in news, everything else is just fake and should be censored. Fake news becomes anything with an unconventional narrative. My blog here could theoretically be deemed as fake news.

Look, fake news is actually a problem. The amount of people who have fallen for sheer conspiracy theories and BS this election is scarily high. But censoring alternate opinions is a far greater evil than allowing them to exist. It should be up to the reader to decide what is true and what is not, not some authority that deems what is good for us or not. Trying to get rid of "fake news" is like establishing a literacy test when voting. It sounds like a great idea, until we realize it's a way to persecute one's political opponents and ensure that they win the narrative and the elections. It's censorship, plain and simple, and while I can see social media sites actually cracking down on explicitly harmful content that translates to people being hurt in real life (for example, I don't shed a tear for reddit banning subs like "fatpeoplehate" and "watch(racial expletive that starts with the letter N)die", anything more than obvious dens of villainy and hatred should not be censored. Freedom of speech and freedom of press are essential for a free society to exist. And yes, people being dumb***es is sometimes a result of that, but it's a lesser evil than censorship in most cases. Only if the site in question is explicitly spreading irrational hate that leads to real harm in a direct way should it be censored in my opinion.