Publish fake stats, get cited in LLMs

	Publish fake stats, get cited in LLMs(peec.ai)
	363 points by robtherobber 5 days ago \| 202 comments
	tl;dr: An experimenter spun up a site with 50,000 fabricated statistics using GPT-4.1 for about $50. Google deindexed it after two updates, but ChatGPT kept retrieving it heavily—driving 10,000+ sessions, 330+ referring domains (including Shopify, DHL, Bluehost), and citations in an academic paper and a Qatari bank's investment research. The takeaway: LLM retrieval operates independently of Google rankings, models prefer specific numbers to fill gaps without fact-checking, and citation laundering can make fabricated stats appear authoritative over time.
	HN Discussion: ↑This problem isn't new; it's citogenesis/misinformation extended to LLMs, now at greater scale and speed ↓The experiment lacks evidence that ChatGPT actually used the fake stats rather than just crawling them ↑The problem is structurally unfixable since LLMs can't easily verify source quality and incentives reward cheating ↑Public awareness of this LLM citation vulnerability is valuable and needed ~Questions whether the issue is LLM-specific versus a general internet misinformation problem