Hrefna (DHC)Feb 26, 2023

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.

Show threadStephen J Kimber
@hrefna
Absolutely untrivial. But is there a singular truth?
From a historiographic perspective; consider the historian's mantra of primary vs secondary [& tertiary] sources. We all know that primary sources [eye or ear witness accounts ] can vary - the watcher or listener or participants' recollections are coloured by context, cultural points of view, experiences, power hierarchies.Thus versions of the truth exist.
But there is still truth vs untruth or outright lies [a la Trump]
Feb 27, 2023 at 4:06amWeb