Forgetting authors, misspelling them or the journals, putting a wrong digit etc... could be citation typos. I don't see how you add 5 non-existing authors and put a different—but conceptually plausible—journal in the bibtex.
Besides, I would think most people are using bibliographic managers like Zotero&co..., which will pull metadata through DOIs or such.
The errors look a lot more like what happens when you ask an LLM for some sources on xyz.
Yes. If you're curious and willing to spend ca. half an hour on the question, I can recommend this excellently done video from the channel 'fern': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHsONupIdlo
It seems like it's being done entirely on the publisher end, with them – or friends – benefiting:
> For example, a single researcher who was associated with Technoscience Academy benefited from more than 3,000 additional illegitimate citations. Some journals from the same publisher benefited from a couple hundred additional sneaked citations.
Perhaps this publisher or others also offer this as some kind of backroom deal / service.
Besides, I would think most people are using bibliographic managers like Zotero&co..., which will pull metadata through DOIs or such.
The errors look a lot more like what happens when you ask an LLM for some sources on xyz.