[GreySquall]

You raise a completely fair point, and conceptually I agree with you.

Again, this entire example rests on the assumption that bots DO exist, which it sounds like they do based on everyone's comments so far.

The point I want to drive home is that there is a segment of the population doing business online and, for better or worse, including FB as part of their ad strategy. FB knows this and makes the entire ad BUYING process cheap and easy, knowing FULL well that these ad buyers are going to receive crap for engagement.

Before confirming my purchase, if FB gave me a warning saying something along the lines of "based on your targeting and how much you're paying for this ad, about 10% of your engagement will be from real people," then at the very least FB has both acknowledged the risk and done something to manage my expectations. Perhaps we wouldn't even been having this exchange.

But, FB doesn't. They keep quiet about this, allowing the farms to exist to make it seem as those unsuspecting business owners are actually getting what they paid for. That's the scam in all of this.