Almost every major social media pays some form of bot to boost engagement and manipulate the algorithm in their favor. You'd be retarded not to honestly, just from a business standpoint. Its one of those "all benefits as long as nobody notices too hard" situations.

Until we break the current iteration of the internet, that builds basically everything around clicks, impressions, ads and "showing your content" then that will continue to be life.

Its still pathetic when someone does it, because its usually being done to make themselves seem bigger and more important than they are rather than purely rational.