Facebook has chosen to ban all cryptocurrency advertisements and has called upon users to report any examples that the company has overlooked.
The decision has been made in a bid to prevent companies using the platform that are looking to promote “ICOs and cryptocurrencies that are not currently operating in good faith,” Rob Leathern, Product Management Director, Facebook said in a post on the policy.
In a breakdown of what exactly Facebook is targeting with this ban, Leathern described financial products and services that are often linked to deceptive promotional practices. Examples he makes of these include ICOs, cryptocurrency and binary options.
Also in the post, Leathern said: “This policy is intentionally broad while we work to better detect deceptive and misleading advertising practices, and enforcement will begin to ramp up across our platforms including Facebook, Audience Network and Instagram. We will revisit this policy and how we enforce it as our signals improve.”
“We also understand that we may not catch every ad that should be removed under this new policy, and encourage our community to report content that violates our Advertising Policies. People can report any ad on Facebook by clicking on the upper right-hand corner of the ad,” Facebook said.
There has been a torrent-like influx of new cryptocurrencies entering the market on the back of the soaring price of Bitcoin, reaching stratospheric heights of close to $20,000 per unit in 2017.
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Following a collapse in the price of Bitcoin in early 2018, many influential figures and organisations are decrying the volatility of the currency. Stripe, the major payments processor, recently announced its abandonment of the currency as a means of transaction, stating that it was proving not to be very useful due this price instability. The company did however say that it remained optimistic about other cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin in particular have also felt increasing pressure on the back of comments from the UK government, with Theresa May and Phillip Hammond coming down on the side of increased regulation. Despite this, the Chancellor of the Exchequer maintained that he is extremely interested in areas of innovation.
