While I don't doubt that fake news is widely shared on Facebook, blaming the outcome of the election on it seems like a convenient way to dismiss the preference

While I don't doubt that fake news is widely shared on Facebook, blaming the outcome of the election on it seems like a convenient way to dismiss the preferences of tens of millions of voters. It seems like there's a real effort right now to show or at least insinuate that fake news is the reason Trump won. There are so many disturbing things about that narrative I don't know where to begin. It would require a profoundly dumber US population than I believe exists. It would imply very cynical things about the US education system which don't mirror my experience growing up there (I have seen truly bad education systems overseas, and while the US could use some work, it's a paragon compared to some others). It would require the conservatives to be much dumber than the liberals, which just sounds like bigotry and arrogance to me. It essentially dismisses the concerns held by Trump's supporters--who are fellow Americans after all--which only widens the growing divide in the electorate. And finally if you believe this idea that fake news is a serious problem which needs to be curtailed, it almost inevitably leads to censorship mechanisms which will be abused down the road. How do you fact check the entire Internet? Anyone in journalism knows how much work it can be to fact check one article and often the facts are open to interpretation, particularly in politics. Elites in government and business are now pushing for the creation of censorship mechanisms in order to curtail fake news, and they're hoping to get away with it because of popular disillusionment over the results of the US election. We really, really need to come together on this point and stop them.