Yep - for eyeballs and ad revenue.

This report is pretty incredible - but a very, very hard read: smaccoalition.com/macaq…

"Social media content creators know that animal rescue content has the potential to be extremely popular. With increased popularity, viral content can generate substantial financial benefits for the content creators as well as the platforms themselves. Savvy content creators have accordingly seized the opportunity for potential profit by creating fake rescue videos designed to lure traffic to their accounts. Falsely positive and heartwarming narratives of animals being heroically saved from dire circumstances attract social media users who believe they are watching or supporting real rescue efforts."

"While fake rescue videos involve the animals being released from dangerous situations, there is a related theme which SMACC refers to as “fake outrage” in which content creators - who again, have most likely put these animals in these situations - share the content claiming shock or outrage at the suffering of the animal, when they are actually responsible for it."