It's easy to cheat a statistic you create. It's quite hard to cheat a statistic where you don't know who will look when at which particular data points.
I did not intend to attack or defend Hans with that statement, I just wanted to point out that both you and the original comment could be right at the same time. That being said, it's quite funny that this case showed both sides.
Further, clearly the analysis wasn't so irrefutable given that they admitted faults with it after others pointed out mistakes[0]
0. https://twitter.com/IglesiasYosha/status/1574308784566067201?