WarpGirl wrote:
the episode made it abundantly clear that Troi, and Riker, accepted the program as fact. Because of that, according to Paramount it is fact.
You're ignoring the difference between fact and inference.
What the episode made abundantly clear was that Troi and Riker watched a holoprogram. They may or may not have believed it was historically accurate and they may or may not have been correct in that belief.
To assume that everything they seemed to believe they actually believed, and everything they believed true was actually true, is daft.
For example, let's imagine an episode where Data tells Wesley that all his friends decided he was such as great guy that they were throwing a party for him in the cargo bay. So Wesley says "WooHoo!" and rushes off to score some free cake and pop. Is it a matter of fact that there is a party waiting for him? You can't know, until the scene cuts to the cargo bay and we see the bucket off goop balanced over the doorway. And now suppose that as Wesley was listening to Data he was thinking back to yesterday when Data pulled this exact same trick. "Hmmm," he thinks, "I'll let him think he's tricked me again, but we'll see who has the last laugh when he sits on that whoopie cushion ..."
Just because Data acted as if he believed it, and Wesley acted as if he believed it, does not mean either of them believe it or that it was true.
What's true is that Data said it, and Wesley seemed to believe him.