In the “hey-day” of social media start-ups, Facebook went from being a popular platform for keeping up with family and friends to a vital business resource. Media companies began to use the connections made by Facebook users to spread their content. Business pages grew exponentially. Some outlets – like Independent Journal Review – became media outlets precisely and exclusively because of their Facebook reach. During Obama’s two terms, Facebook was a vital resource to his campaigns. They innovated data-gathering strategies and used Facebook as an indispensable messaging platform. All of Obama’s opponents were left scrambling to catch up, history was made.

Then along came 2016. Along came Trump. Suddenly those hailing the Obama team’s tech savvy were utterly confounded and enraged that the same strategies boosted this strange, reality-star “underdog” to the presidency. Facebook -once the darling of social media – began having to answer questions about how their algorithms helped spread “fake news”, or at least news that wasn’t benefiting a certain ideology and political bent.

It was a mess. Zuckerberg and his team immediately began promising to crack down on “fake news” and “clickbait” and “offensive” content. Algorithms shifted, censors were hired…unsurprisingly conservative outlets were punished the most harshly.

Media outlets like our own and IJR and others began to hire people who’s only job it was to work with Facebook and it’s constantly changing algorithms. Over the last year it has become sickeningly clear that Facebook has no real intentions of working with media outlets who pay handsomely to comply with their ever-changing rules. If you’ve noticed some of your favorite pages for news and culture can’t be seen anymore, that’s because Facebook is deliberately squashing them.

In March, the incredibly successful news and culture blog Rare -which is owned by media behemoth Cox Media – announced that they would be closing up shop after nearly five years as a major outlet. This week, a Rare writer who had been with them from the beginning posted a saddening and blistering op-ed about Facebook’s shady algorithm game, and how it is now killing careers and years of hard work – and ultimately free expression.

In “Killed by Facebook”, Matt Naham details the heady beginnings of the Rare start-up and how it expanded to multiple verticals which became hugely popular. Through hard work, good writing and a deliberate strategy to work within the Facebook boundaries Rare became one of the top sites for news and entertainment on the web. Naham says the plan was to seek out the “shareable” stories and make them most shareable on Facebook. But that didn’t last long…not long enough, anyway.

Rare scrambled to keep up with the constant changes. They, and others, paid Facebook huge sums of money for access and aid in navigating the algorithm jungle. Facebook had cleverly (and very capitalistically) found a way to monetize their influence. It only seemed fair for a private company, and media outlets were miffed but willing to play the game. This is how it’s done in America.

Only, Facebook wouldn’t stop moving the goalposts. They were happy to take the money all the while making it more and more difficult for content to be shared and even seen.

Naham says the team at Rare became increasingly frustrated, and it soon became clear that their grand and hugely successful endeavor would be coming to an end – all because of an intentionally vicious algorithm.

Rare isn’t the only casualty of Facebook’s changes. Several start-up sites (including one I recently worked for) were forced to close just as they were taking off. The hugely popular Right Wing News has already had to close their doors. Rumors of serious issues at online media giants like IJR and The Blaze abound. It won’t be long before more and more of your favorite news pages are simply gone for good in Facebook-land.

It is clear they are making moves to become their own media outlet, thus having complete control over what users see and share. Have you noticed more FBTV videos popping up in your feed? Facebook wants to be what you share. Facebook wants the approval of what you share. Facebook wants any media outlet left on their platform to have to work through their own media in order to have any reach.

In short, Facebook’s big “solution” to tamping down fake news is to become the news.