This idea that somehow search engines _can_ arbitrate "truth" is just so… not how any of this works or could even conceivably work.
The reason that search engines "backstop" with wikipedia is because wikipedia is a giant curated and mostly-audience-appropriate collection of knowledge.
Knowing what is "true" is so incredibly nontrivial.
@hrefna @futurebird there is also this vast disconnect - a lot of search engines and people broadly seem to think that there is a single “rightl answer to any given query.
When, j would argue, in nearly all cases there is not. That every query (and the person making the query) has a context which may or may not be known to the search engine and which can make the best answer/link for their context differ from others.
This is true even if seemingly obvious questions “how many hours in a day?”
My example “how many hours in a day” is one of my favorite “trick” questions - there is no single right answer to this. It entirely depends on unknown context - where you are, what day it is, what year it is, in some cases what your political affiliations are. All of which can make the answer differ.
(To explain - day light savings as well as time zones and changing day light savings and time zones is a political decision - where borders are fought over time can differ)
Hrefna (DHC)
Shannon Clark