In today’s fast-paced world of social media, where information spreads rapidly, social networking giant Facebook has recently intensified its efforts to control the spread of fake news—one of its biggest ongoing battles.
Moreover, as the recent craze around cryptocurrencies grows, many users are actively using Facebook—one of the most widely used social networking platforms—to spread information and news about digital currencies. Having received a lot of persisting complaints about fraudulent and spammy cryptocurrency ads on its platform, Facebook has now issued an outright ban on them.
Under the new policy released by the social media giant, Facebook will take down ads that promote or involve cryptocurrencies and Initial Coin Offerings. In the ruling issued on January 30, Rob Leathern, the company’s product management director, wrote: ‘Ads must not promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices, such as binary options, initial coin offerings, or cryptocurrency.’
Leathern further continued to write: “We want people to continue to discover and learn about new products and services through Facebook ads without fear of scams or deception. That said, there are many companies who are advertising binary options, ICOs and cryptocurrencies that are not currently operating in good faith.”
Facebook will also enforce the new ruling on its popular photo-sharing app Instagram and on its off-platform Audience Network. In the recent growing interest in cryptocurrency investment among global investors, the social media website has witnessed heavy flooding of ads pitching investment advice for cryptocurrency and also for Initial Coin Offerings.
Some of the popular ads found frequently on Facebook appeared with the titles like “Click here to learn more about our no-risk cryptocurrency that enables instant payments to anyone in the world”, “Use your retirement funds to buy Bitcoin”, and “New ICO! Buy tokens at a 15% discount now!”
Other advertisements have actively lured Facebook users by promising sky-high returns on their investments. Leathern said that Facebook is targeting such ads as a part of its evolving policy to protect its users from being a victim of any fraudulent activities, through their medium.
Leathern hinted that as the requirement arises, the company can possibly change the policy in the future. He wrote: “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.”
Facebook reportedly made this decision because, as the most widely used social media platform, it must stay vigilant and act in the best interest of its users, ensuring their protection over the long term.