So, what happened to 17.1? Everyone speculated it would come yesterday, but today there's still total silence about a release. No rumors why this was false information and when 17.1 is really coming?
Of course we now know it came out October 25.
The speculation arose because France forced Apple to stop selling the iPhone 12 (which I believe they were no longer selling anyway, but..) and provide a fix for existing iPhone 12 models because the phone did not pass some electromagnetic radiation tests. Apple was able to get the French authority to re-test with a pre-release version of iOS 17.1, which passed the tests. The French organization then announced that they were told by Apple that this version would be released no later than October 24 - but there was never an official announcement by Apple that it would be on that date.
It came out a day later. That's the explanation, and I'm not sure that we can really categorize it as false information. It's possible that the person who drafted this had a typo (as the 4 key is right next to the 5 key), or misread the information from Apple, etc.