Third option: they've fallen into a pattern recognition fallacy and think it's a number when it's a completely different symbol. This happens a lot more often than most realize and even knowing about it, it can be difficult to go against the human instinct to find patterns that may or may not exist and then fit the data to it.

Someone, somewhere, will misrepresent this to give credence to the "do your own research" crowd.

Which is not to discredit the message. They misrepresent everything.

g

Ironically, doing research is the best way to be right. What people want is to feel right without having to think very hard. Feelings don’t really require energy in the same way that thinking does.