I've seen this all over the news. It served its purpose.

What purpose is that? Are you claiming they aren't looking to hire people, and just want their company name out there for other purposes? Or that having this story somehow helps their actual hiring goals (e.g. by dissuading people who think that this is awful from applying, or that it will actually make people want to apply)?

I can think of several purposes someone might claim that this has. All of them seem pretty dubious to me though, so if you think it's obvious, I would be interested in hearing what you think it is.