[brookst]

You're hitting on a big question about the role of search engines.

Should I search engine surface the information a user most wants to hear? Or the most objectively accurate information?

Yes, yes, "objective" can be disputed in some cases, but not all. The COVID vaccines do not, in objective fact, have 5G microchips in them. They just don't.

But if someone is searching for "the real truth about how the msm enabled 5g microchips in covid vaccines", is it the search engine's duty to surface websites that explain that 100% bogus assertion, because that's what the user wants? Or should a search engine return sites that debunk the theory?

Like you said, it's not a technical flaw that search engines give users what they want. But is it a mission flaw?

[nl]

If a tool that is supposed to be helping you find information gives you wrong information (eg sends you to a link that COVID vaccines have 5G chips) then I'd say that is a failure of the tool.

[brookst]

I tend to agree. But if I want to find wrong information and the tool doesn’t give me what I want, isn’t that also a failure of the tool? At least in the “product does not meet user expectations” sense of failure?

[nl]

I imagine something like "misconceptions about the ingredients of the COVID vaccine" would be appropriate.

[brookst]

I very much agree. But from a UX point of view, that's a failure. This is a case where the user's desire (find my evidence of something I believe) is not aligned with what IMO should be a search engine's mission (surface the most relevant and accurate information for a query).