Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has warned Facebook it needs to fix its “fake news” problem — or else, the Star reported yesterday.

What chillingly echoes like an Orwellian threat is being applauded, left and right — but obviously mostly on the left and by the left, the furthest fringes of it — on social media, as if any government defining what’s “fake news” and what’s “real news” is a good thing.

Apparently, Trudeau warned that the Canadian government would intervene with stricter regulations if Facebook doesn’t address its “fake news” problem.

“Social media platforms play a direct role in how Canadians consume information, and have significant influence when it comes to shaping the public discourse. We encourage all social media platforms to think critically about their current practices and how they can create spaces for informed public dialogue,” Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould said in a statement, the Star reported.

“There are growing concerns across Ottawa about the reach and power of these platforms — and the possibility of interference in the 2019 election on multiple online fronts,” the Star’s Alex Boutilier wrote.

Looks like you’ve had a bit too much to think. The government will do that for you from now on.

How exactly do social media platforms interfere in elections? Furthermore, why are their reach and power a concern?

Social media has accelerated the flow of information like nothing else, and since most living, breathing adults in the civilized world are on social media, these platforms do have reach and they do, indeed, have immense power.

That is interference.

Allowing dissenting thought to exist is, apparently, interference.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing, Trudeau wisely panders to the average millennial authoritarian leftist who prefers virtue-signaling to thinking. With his oh-so-quirky duck socks and “We like to say ‘peoplekind’, not necessarily ‘mankind’, because it’s more inclusive” comments, the prime minister is flaunting faux-tolerance the authoritarian left has gotten so morbidly accustomed to, while sending horrific signals against press and thought freedom.

In the eyes of many people, a crackdown on “fake news” is, so it seems, a good thing. This begs the question: What if any other politician, who’s PR tactics aren’t designed to pander to the establishment left, announced a crackdown on social media “fake news”?

What’s it called when Putin forbids whatever his government deems “fake news”?

What’s it called when the supreme leader of North Korea does the same?

Trudeau is threatening to regulate social media, which means he is threatening to regulate news, which means he’s threatening to regulate information, which means he’s playing thought policeman.

Signaling that government-approved news is the only news you’re supposed to consume is more than a slightly roundabout way of announcing an all-encompassing propaganda campaign, it is an appalling attack on freedom of information.