Peer review means "has no blatantly obvious methodological issues" at best, and not even that a decent amount of the time. A lot of people take it to mean that the paper's results/conclusions are accurate.

I think when lay people say "peer reviewed research" they mean it as a metanym for "the scientific consensus as established by empirical research and vigorous debate," which isn't absolute fact to be sure, but is about as sturdy a foundation as you can hope for. I think I know more about peer review and retractions than most people - and I know next to nothing.

I think this demonstrates a hypothesis: The institution is failing, the technology which exploits the failure is close to irrelevant.

If you want to hear back from any organization, you’ve got to write it on lawyer letterhead.