Is This South Dakota History Facebook Page a Total Scam?

There is nothing quite like the feeling of scrolling through social media and stumbling across old photos from back in the day. Pictures of local county fairs, vintage farming equipment, and old buildings from a bygone era have a powerful way of taking us down memory lane and rekindling fond memories of yesteryear. It’s a great feeling, and it’s a powerful emotion. Unfortunately, it appears some digital scammers might be trying to take advantage of that exact local nostalgia. This is the day and age we live in, but there's a big reason why this matters.

I recently came across a fast-growing Facebook page dedicated to South Dakota history, but something about the posts immediately made me skeptical that a true South Dakotan was running it. As it turns out, that skepticism was well-founded. According to Facebook's own public Page Transparency tools, this page, celebrating our state's deep roots, isn't being operated from anywhere near the Midwest. In fact, Meta's data shows that the accounts running it are located nearly 8,000 miles away in the South Asian nation of Bangladesh.

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How I Discovered the Scam Operation: A Buc-ee's in South Dakota?

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The page in question is called History of South Dakota, and my first encounter with it a few weeks ago left me completely puzzled. A post popped up on my feed featuring an enormous, crowded Buc-ee's travel center, the cult-favorite gas station chain popular down south, sitting right next to Mount Rushmore. The caption declared that "South Dakota had just gotten its very first Buc-ee's."

The problem? It was a total lie, but it completely deceived people. The post blew up, racking up around 300 reactions and 150 comments from local folks who were genuinely excited and asking where the Buc-ee's could be found. What caught my eye, though, was a sign in the AI-generated image that was supposed to show the map outline of South Dakota. Instead, the computer program had accidentally drawn the unmistakable shape of the state of Michigan.

When I chimed in the comments to point out that it was a fake image showing the wrong state, it sparked a deeper investigation. I went to the page's "About" section and clicked the Page Transparency tab. What I found confirmed my suspicions: this group isn't run by a local historian. According to Facebook's own data, the accounts managing it are located nearly 8,000 miles away in Bangladesh.

Since keeping an eye on the page, I've noticed they churn out an average of 15 automated posts a day. Because the Facebook algorithm rewards constant posting, the page has exploded, gaining thousands of followers in a short time, to sit at nearly 9,500 as of the writing of this article.

But to see just how unmonitored this click-farm really is, look at what happened after I left that comment exposing the Michigan-shaped map error. Just one day later, I got a notification from Facebook proudly informing me that I had been crowned an official "Top Fan" of the page! Because this kind of operation relies entirely on automated software to drive engagement, a real, live person never actually read my warning. The system just saw that I interacted with the post, leading to the hilarious irony of a foreign click farm naming me one of their top supporters.

AI Bots and Patriot Bait From a Foreign Click Farm

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If a Buc-ee's next to Mount Rushmore featuring a map of Michigan doesn’t convince you, the page's daily content will. Because these foreign click-farms rely entirely on artificial intelligence to write captions and generate graphics, they are prone to making some absolutely impossible (and totally ridiculous) errors.

Take another recent post that screamed "BREAKING" in all caps, asking what would happen to South Dakota if the Yellowstone supervolcano exploded. Below the terrifying text was a dramatic AI-generated image showing a massive, lava-spewing volcano erupting directly inside our state lines, right next to the West River town of Rapid City. As any local knows, Yellowstone is hundreds of miles away in Wyoming, and, last checked, Rapid City isn't sitting on a geologic volcanic hotspot.

But these pages aren't just making silly geographical blunders; they are actively trying to manipulate your emotions. Another popular post on the page featured a bird's-eye view of a wide-open soybean field with giant text written into the crops declaring that our state needs to back local farmers. The description claimed our local producers are so dedicated that they don't even use GPS, instead relying on "sheer unadulterated willpower and a very, very long measuring tape."

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It’s easy to laugh at the thought of a farmer using a measuring tape across a section of land, but it reveals a calculated strategy. The click farm knows that South Dakotans are deeply passionate about supporting local agriculture and holding on to their traditional values. They are intentionally throwing out "identity bait," hoping to prey upon that genuine hometown pride.

Out of the 15 posts they pump out a day, about 13 usually go completely unnoticed. But it only takes one or two of these emotional, nostalgic posts to take off, rack up dozens of likes, and trick the Facebook algorithm into pushing their page onto thousands of other local screens.

And South Dakota isn't the only target. If you look closely at how these operations function, a carbon-copy business model appears across the country. By utilizing Facebook's public transparency data, lookalike pages targeting other states, such as "California Life", "Nebraska Stories", "Arkansas Living", and a highly successful page called "I grew up in Iowa" that has already racked up over 18,000 followers, can be independently verified as operating out of the same location in Bangladesh, using the exact same automated posting patterns.

Why They Do This And How To Protect Yourself

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So, why is a digital marketer in Bangladesh suddenly so obsessed with Midwestern heritage and agriculture? It all comes down to a high-volume numbers game designed to exploit your attention for real cash. In other words, money.

By using free AI tools to pump out dozens of nostalgic posts a day, these foreign click farms can build huge, unsuspecting audiences at a pretty fast pace. Once a page gathers thousands of followers, that's when the real hustle begins. The managers monetize that local attention by filling the feed with sketchy links, promoting low-quality merchandise storefronts, or redirecting traffic to ad-heavy websites to cash in on clicks.

Even worse, these engagement farms can easily pivot into dangerous territory. The links they share can be used for data harvesting or pushing phishing scams designed to compromise your personal accounts and steal your identity. What starts as an innocent click on a nostalgic photo can end with your Facebook profile hacked or your personal information sold to the highest bidder.

This is a calculated business model that relies on our state's goodwill and hometown pride to spread.

You can help put a stop to it. Before you hit "share" on a nostalgic photo or an unbelievable local update, take two seconds to click the page's "About" section and check the Page Transparency tab. If you find a page that is clearly a scam or misrepresenting itself, do not just scroll past. Take a moment to report it directly to Facebook, and consider filing a report with the Better Business Bureau to help keep these predatory operations on the radar.

Authentic local history belongs to the people who actually lived it, not a bot across the ocean.