If knowledge is power, then is fake news... fake power?
I think the reason this is becoming such a problem in today's world is that most people can't be bothered to perform due diligence by going through all the "guide yourself away from disinformation" steps outlined above. Attention spans are short and there is already an overload of competing interests vying for our limited free time. People just want to have information handed to them and trust the "experts" to know what they're talking about. The so-called "experts" realize this and that puts them in a position to manipulate events to their liking.
Fake news leads to fake power over the brains of those with synthetic common sense!
Fake news is deliberately disempowering its target audience. So yes. Deliberately created 'fake news' (i.e. Public Relations or what used to be called Propaganda) deliberately disempowers those that buy into it, or rather convinces them to loan their power behind a cause or demagogue they believe will align with their interests. But not all news that is wrong is fake. Sometimes the creators believe their own bullshit. Then the news is not so much 'fake' as 'poorly researched opinionated nonsense'. Then there is nonsense news generated by AI designed to get hits for online advertising with no ideological agenda other than making a profit.