To a non-techy - what is the bottom line here? Don't understand the concern.
The simple, local problem:
Fake users putting up fake posts and wasting the time of the people who answer them (because the OPs don't care about the question they asked and didn't even write them.) Also wasting moderator's time because they spam wildly off-topic posts everywhere.
So that's annoying.
The bigger, broader problem:
They're using this to spy on you, and the purpose of that spying could be as "innocent" as selling you things or as nefarious as connecting your account to your real-life identity (e.g. "unmasking") for political purposes.
They're also creating "sleeper" accounts they they may then reactivate years later to give the impression that real, long-time users have a particular opinion.
In the end everyone is better off if whoever this is doesn't get to place their tracking pixels into the forums they target.
