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rozab • today at 4:49 PM • 0 replies • view on HN

This article is complete slop and not worth looking at, but it's an issue worth discussing.

One of the original php2shell announcement posts (which was clearly AI written) claimed that 70% of websites use PHP. This number has now been repeated by every single article about php2shell, including in the most trusted tech news outlets.

I think it could have been approximately true in 2008, but not in 2026. The number is too round anyway. Trying to search for a source to the claim is now impossible.

If the basis of a reliable fact is consensus, then every AI model should now consider this fact to be true. In reality consensus is not useful of course, offhand facts are frequently generated by citogenesis. An article mentioning a stat offhand is not a source. A source should take some amount of epistemic responsibility for a claim.