Facebook’s U-turn on its Ban on Cryptocurrency Ads

Facebook announced it’s reversing its cryptocurrency ad ban effective immediately, not being able to resist the growth and popularity of the cryptocurrencies, which could be huge revenue streams.

Facebook had first announced the ban in January, saying at the time that too many companies in this space were “not currently operating in good faith.”

Reversal with caution

The policy states some clear cautions and restrictions. Although the reversal of advertising for cryptocurrency has need announced by Facebook, it will continue to prohibit ads that promote binary options and initial coin offerings. Also, the ads being published in this space will undergo an expert screening. Quoting Facebooks announcement

“Advertisers wanting to run ads for cryptocurrency products and services must submit an application to help us assess their eligibility — including any licenses they have obtained, whether they are traded on a public stock exchange, and other relevant public background on their business. Given these restrictions, not everyone who wants to advertise will be able to do so. “

Although the announcement was silent about what would happen after the application, the screening process and its timelines to approvals.

Facebook also announced that it will continue to help prevent or remove misleading advertising for cryptocurrencies and ICO’s. Facebook has requested its users to report content that violates its advertising policies by selecting “report ad” in the upper right-hand corner of any advertisement.

Also, read: Facebook Data Breaching Accusation, Raises a Need for Blockchain Technologies

Facebook opens to further changes

Facebook, the decision of screening may prevent some crypto advertisements but does mention that its policy in this area will continuously be updated and worked up.

“…We’ll listen to feedback, look at how well this policy works and continue to study this technology so that, if necessary, we can revise it over time,”

says Rob Leathern, Product Management Director, in Facebook’s announcement.

Technology platforms have been cautious of associating their platform with cryptocurrency and ICO news that was misleading. Scams and Ponzi schemes and misleading ICO’s had gone rife as bitcoin climbed to USD 19000 last year and investors were hunting for coins that made them humungous returns overnight. According to the FTC, consumers lost $532 million to cryptocurrency-related scams in the first two months of 2018.  

Facebook’s first decision to ban crypto ads was followed by Google in March when the company cited the “unregulated” and “speculative” nature of many of the advertised products. Its new policy begins this month. Twitter and Snap also have some policies around crypto ads, with Twitter only showing ads for exchanges and wallets provided by publicly traded companies and Snap allowing crypto ads but banning those for ICOs.

This revision of policy is a welcome news of crypto businesses as platforms like Facebook gives them direct access to its stakeholders. With Facebook reversing its decision, it is soon be expected other platforms to follow suit.

Will Facebook further lower its criteria for crypto advertising in coming months? Is this the sign tech giants are opening doors to cryptocurrencies? DO let us know your views on the same