I wrote a (very long) blog post about those viral math problems and am looking for feedback, especially from people who are not convinced that the problem is ambiguous.
It's about a 30min read so thank you in advance if you really take the time to read it, but I think it's worth it if you joined such discussions in the past, but I'm probably biased because I wrote it :)
No, it's in Maths textbooks, and must be... blindly followed. :-)
...it wouldn't matter at all. The order of operations comes from the very definitions of the operators themselves. e.g. 2x3 is shorthand for 2+2+2.