We all want Web sites to be truthful. But Google is considering trying to impose its version of the truth on the Internet:

In a step that critics worry will inject political bias into search results, a Google research team released a report this month on ranking search results based on how factual websites are. They propose eventually using that to change Google rankings, which are currently based on website popularity. The Google researchers give, as an example, websites that say President Obama was born in Kenya; such sites would be penalized in Google rankings, whereas sites that correctly say he was born in the U.S. would get a boost in rankings. That fact is not controversial, but critics worry that this is a first step towards Google playing God and effectively censoring content it does not like. They fear that skeptics of things like climate change or more immigration (both subjects that Google founders have expressed strong feelings about) might find their websites buried if this ranking system were adopted. “I worry about this issue greatly… My site gets a significant portion of its daily traffic from Google,” Anthony Watts, who runs Watts Up With That, a popular blog that is skeptical of global warming claims, told FoxNews.com. “It is a very slippery and dangerous slope because there’s no arguing with a machine,” he added.

This is indeed a very dangerous road. How bad is it? This bad:

The Google researchers base their truth-ratings on a database they compiled called the “Knowledge Vault,” built from sources they deemed relatively trustworthy – such as Wikipedia and Freebase, which are crowd-sourced sites they believe are largely self-correcting, and government websites. There are currently 2.8 billion Google “facts” in Knowledge Vault, which the researchers used for their ranking system.

Yes. If you contradict Wikipedia, your site is falsehood-filled and worthless. Just to take one example: Wikipedia is the site that continually deleted a description of Brett Kimberlin as “a convicted drug dealer, bomber, and political activist.” Among the “facts” that were once approved about Kimberlin: “Since October of 2010, conservatives have hounded Kimberlin about his bombing conviction…”

You can see why it’s important to keep truths about his bombing away from the public’s eyes, while characterizing any discussion of it as “hounding.” Surely you see that, do you not, comrade? And if not, well, nice page ranking you got there . . .

And, as noted above, any Unapproved Opinions about global warming or immigration are right out.

Better that Google be the one to try this, rather than the federal government. If Google tries it, we can use a different search engine. But if the FCC tries to impose it, we are in a tougher spot, aren’t we?

UPDATE: Thanks to Instapundit for the link.