Debates
He planted 50,000 fake statistics. Now developers are debating who checks AI's citations.
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StateGlobe experiment
Project Oct 21, 2026
Metehan Yesilyurt's self-reported experiment tracing fabricated statistics from a purpose-built website into AI search citations and other publications.
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StateGlobe experiment timeline
Metehan Yesilyurt describes creating StateGlobe in March 2026 with statistics generated by GPT-4.1 that he says were entirely invented. His October 7 account on Peec AI’s blog reports continued ChatGPT referrals and links from other publications after the site’s Google visibility collapsed. Those traffic and citation figures are the author’s reported measurements, not an independent AITrending audit.
The experiment concerns retrieval and the reuse of apparent evidence. It does not demonstrate that the fabricated figures entered a model’s training data. Yesilyurt says the site now carries a disclaimer and recommends publishing accurate, sourced statistics. An October 20 Hacker News discussion renewed attention to the report; that discussion date is distinct from the experiment’s launch and original article date.