It's an infuriating dark pattern that Facebook themselves have created.

I don't think most business owners realize what's even happening when they post their ads. I've had it happen a few times now where I saw a slightly interesting image in an ad and wanted to zoom in (e.g. to read the specs of a laptop being advertised), but when I tapped it BAM redirect to a Messenger conversation.

Classic enshittification: there's a spreadsheet somewhere in Meta HQ that some dickhead middle-manager made proving that it increased conversion numbers, but doesn't measure how pissed off it makes their users, or how long-term toxic it is to the brands using that feature.