StateGlobe fake-stats experiment: 50,000 fabricated pages still cited by ChatGPT

Publish fake stats, get cited in LLMs

Peec AI researchers used GPT-4.1 to generate 50,000 fake statistics pages for stateglobe.com, and seven months later ChatGPT still cites them. The report says Google has sharply cut the site's visibility, but ChatGPT drove more than 10,000 visit sessions, the site drew links from 330+ domains, and the invented numbers reached academic papers and bank investment research.

Why it matters: Fake statistics tracked from creation to citation show how invented numbers gain the look of authority once papers and banks repeat them.