Facebook has just made it a bit harder for scammers to solicit your hard-earned dollars for cryptocurrency purchases. Of course, the social media company"s new policy also may hit some legitimate crypto ads as well.
The policy, made public today by Facebook Product Management Director Rob Leathern, "prohibits ads that promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices, such as binary options, initial coin offerings and cryptocurrency." The move is to protect users from ads that are trying to capitalize on the popularity of these new financial opportunities through bad faith.
Leathern acknowledged that the policy may hit some legitimate ads as well. "This policy is intentionally broad while we work to better detect deceptive and misleading advertising practices," he said. adding that Facebook and its Audience Network and Instagram subsidiaries are also part of the new rule. "We will revisit this policy and how we enforce it as our signals improve."
The new policy will definitely have an effect on the ads of “crypto genius” James Altucher, a cryptocurrency proponent whose ads can be seen all over the internet seeking viewers to "click here" to learn to become a Bitcoin master."
The broad scope of the policy is expected to ruffle the feathers of legitimate advertisers, however, at least until Facebook can refine its standards. Facebook has two board members - Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen - who own firms that have heavily backed cryptocurrency Also, David Marcus, who heads up Facebook Messenger, is a board member at Coinbase, a popular cryptocurrency exchange..