Facebook and YouTube, both of whom are run by liberal management, are outraged over "fake" news that they perceived benefited Donald Trump in the run-up to the election.  We hear this constantly in reference to "fake" stories that showed Hillary Clinton in a bad light.  Never do we hear it in reference to fake stories against Donald Trump.  I guess 100% of the fake stories were against Hillary and liberal causes.

So now Facebook and YouTube are fighting back, using a number of means overt and less so to squash the dissemination of conservative viewpoints on their platforms.

YouTube has been at war with popular conservative talk show host Steven Crowder.  Crowder is especially threatening because he appeals to young people and has crossover appeal even to those who are not necessarily conservatives.  YouTube started its war on Crowder some time ago by making his videos "age restricted," which means:

Crowder's videos may not be played in public places like libraries, schools, or anywhere that censors content for people 18 and younger.

This, of course, is a problem that Dennis Prager's "Prager University" channel has also run into.

Now YouTube is taking things a step farther.  Traditionally, if you subscribed to a channel like Crowder's show, you received a notification when Crowder produced new videos.  Now Crowder reports (at the 7 minute mark) that YouTube is replacing people's subscriptions with its own "recommendations," which coincidentally reduces the number of people notified about his videos.  But YouTube has to be subtle about this sort of censorship, because if it were overt about it, it would lose users.

Facebook is in the same boat.  It can't openly show its dislike for conservative viewpoints, so instead it is on a jihad to combat "fake" news, which seems to be the new code phrase for suppressing conservative viewpoints.  That's why Facebook is empowering liberal website Snopes and the liberals at ABC News to judge what is "real" news and what is "fake" news, and to label news reports it dislikes as "fake" in the body of the article.

So if ABC News sees a piece critical of global warming, will it label it as "fake news"?  If it sees an article reporting on illegal aliens voting, will that be labeled fake as well?  You can see where this is going.

Facebook also attacks conservatives in other ways, censoring and taking down their posts.  Steven Crowder has had that happen to him, without specific explanation, numerous times.

Liberals loved it when all news flowed through three networks – ABC, NBC, and CBS, and then later on with CNN.  Then, when talk radio appeared, they tried to silence it with the "fairness" doctrine.  Now that conservatives are finally finding their voice in social media, liberals are trying to reassert their status as gatekeeper by discrediting any viewpoint that does not agree with their own.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.