Facebook announced a ban on cryptocurrency advertising in an effort to keep advertising on its site safe and transparent. According to Facebook's blog post, ads selling cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin are frequently associated with "misleading and deceptive promotional practices," something that doesn't fit with its advertising principles.
Cryptocurrency has become popular as an alternative method of payment in recent years and according to Fortune, regulators are starting to fight back against fraud. Just this week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission stopped an alleged initial coin offering scam according to BBC News.
Facebook's ban is just the latest measure taken.
Why the ban?
So, why ban cryptocurrency ads now? According to BBC news, this is just Facebook's latest attempt to protect its advertising platform's integrity. Over the past year, the platform has come under scrutiny for allowing inappropriate content to reach its users.
Also, according to Facebook's blog post, the policy is "intentionally broad" to allow the company time to better determine what deceptive advertising practices are being used on their platform. The company stated that they will revisit the policy once those deceptive practices have been determined. This policy applies to all of the company's platforms as well.
Facebook's view
While Facebook views cryptocurrency ads as being mostly misleading, the company is not against cryptocurrencies themselves according to BBC News.
And in a blog post this month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he was interested in cryptocurrencies as they had the potential to put monetary power back in people's hands. While Facebook wants people to learn about new services and products such as cryptocurrencies through ads on their platform, the company is very much against deceptive advertising.
Facebook's crackdown on cryptocurrency ads is one of the latest measures taken in a largely unregulated space. Cryptocurrency has never been strictly regulated according to Business Insider and is commonly used for fundraising. With the recent popularity and boom of cryptocurrencies, the scams have risen as well. Hopefully Facebook's new policy will cut back on the number of scams on the platform and encourage other advertising platforms to do the same. The policy goes into effect this week and applies to all of the company's platforms.
