By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 23rd, 2024
Under the revised policy, cryptocurrency companies will have to fill a request sheet specifying the type of service and products they want to advertise.
In a fresh new announcement coming Tuesday, June 26, social media mogul Facebook has once again revised its policy which once again allows cryptocurrency related ads to be featured on its platform. Earlier this year in January 2018, Facebook had introduced an outright ban on advertisements relating to cryptocurrencies and ICOs on its platform.
For this action, Facebook cited the reason of several misleading and fraudulent schemes trapping the users on its platform. Hence, in order to uphold the credibility of its platform, Facebook took this decision. In the latest announcement made by Rob Leathern, Facebook’s Product Management Director, he mentions that the company has introduced a “cryptocurrency products and services onboarding request” form filling which will allow some companies to feature their ads on the Facebook platform.
However, Facebook still remains firm in its decision that it won’t allow advertisements for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) or binary options to be featured. The request sheet clearly highlights that Facebook wants specifics regarding the kinds of services or products which the crypto company want to advertise, before being featured on its platform. The sheet asks some pertinent questions to the companies such as whether they have the license to operate or if they are listed. One can also check the legal addendum to understand Facebook’s policy towards cryptocurrency ads.
In the blog post, Rob Leathern mentions:
“In the last few months, we’ve— to allow some ads while also working to ensure that they’re safe. So starting June 26, we’ll be updating our policy to allow ads that promote cryptocurrency and related content from pre-approved advertisers. But we’ll continue to prohibit ads that promote binary options and initial coin offerings.”
He further adds:
“Given these restrictions, not everyone who wants to advertise will be able to do so. But 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.”
Founder of Ditto PR, a crypto public relations firm – Trey Ditto – calls this Facebook move as “the first step in allowing credible blockchain projects, crypto companies and ICOs to get in front of new potential customers and investors.” He adds:
“This will be a big boost for Facebook advertising revenue as the majority of projects out there are interested – and have the money – to run paid ads.”
Following Facebook’s decision earlier this year, there were other social media giants like Google and Twitter who took a similar decision of banning crypto-ads from their platforms. For online media platforms, advertisements prove to be a major source of revenue. The crypto craze and frenzy of the last year, in turn, provided a lot of revenue-fuel to these platforms.
It would be certainly interesting to see whether Google and Twitter also revise their policies in short time to make some space and let cryptocurrency ads feature on their platforms.