The Widespread Use of Weak Hadith in Sunni Islam
A summary of the 2011 academic paper “Even If It’s Not True It’s True: Using Unreliable Hadīths in Sunni Islam, Islamic Law and Society” by Jonathan Brown
Jonathan Brown in his academic paper writes that the mainstream Sunni stance was that weak hadith were allowed to be used for topics such as manners, preaching and history, but not for law and ritual.