Three and a half years ago nobody had ever used tools like this. It can't be a legitimate complaint for an author to say, "not my fault my citations are fake it

Three and a half years ago nobody had ever used tools like this. It can't be a legitimate complaint for an author to say, "not my fault my citations are fake it's the fault of these tools" because until recently no such tools were available and the expectation was that all citations are real.