Facebook’s Blockchain Ad Policy Revised

Any advertisements related to blockchain tech, industry news as well as events and education pieces surrounding cryptocurrencies can once more be displayed on Facebook’s platform without the requirement of prior approval. The social network announced this new development via Facebook Business on May 8th.

Of course, this marks a welcome departure from last year, when Facebook decided to implement a policy which required cryptocurrency & blockchain promoters to seek prior consent before running any ads on the platform. The new press release, however, does specify that this change to the platform’s policy will not apply to any ads that seek to promote a particular cryptocurrency and ads for ICOs (initial coin offerings) remain prohibited.

The initial purpose of these restrictions in an effort to prevent any Facebook users from falling victim to misleading advertising. Any advertisers who are interested in promoting specific products, such as a particular cryptocurrency, exchange or mining software & hardware are obliged to go through a meticulous background screening which includes the following:

“…licenses they have obtained, whether they are traded on a public stock exchange (or are a subsidiary of a public company) and other relevant public background on their business.”

Facebook’s initial decision to ban crypto and ICO ads altogether back in January 2018 was met with criticism for being unnecessary and harmful for technological development. Founder of FUSION, Dejun Qian commented:

“This policy will definitely protect people from the scams of predatory projects. However, announcing an ‘intentionally broad’ policy is always the easiest way and not necessarily the best route for technology development. I don’t believe that banning e-commerce ads just because people face the risk of buying counterfeited products is a good idea.”

Furthermore, earlier this week saw Facebook acquiring the rights to the trademark for “Libra” for its cryptocurrency project. As reported by CoinBeat, the firm is currently seeking $1 billion in investments for its own native token which will be used on Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp.