Facebook Bans Ads Promoting Cryptocurrencies and ICOs

Facebook announced this week that it has banned advertisements that “promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices,” including ads for initial coin offerings and cryptocurrencies.

Having faced significant criticism for its role in the alleged meddling of the 2016 U.S. election by allowing thousands of Russian-backed ads on its platform, Facebook appears to be ramping up its efforts to combat nefarious advertising practices. Rob Leathern, product management director for Facebook, said in a blog post that the new company’s new ad policy “is part of an ongoing effort to improve the integrity and security of our ads, and to make it harder for scammers to profit from a presence on Facebook.”

Per Leathern:

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.

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.

For his part, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has expressed an interest in cryptocurrencies, saying in a blog post that he wanted “to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services.”

Photo: JD Lasica/Flickr