Cryptocurrency is having a tough time lately, with extreme volatility in its value and issues around fraud and abuse in cryptocurrency exchanges given it a bad name and causing governments and private organizations to take steps to limit its impact. Regarding the latter, both Facebook and Google are banning cryptocurrency advertising on their ad networks and now another social media giant, Twitter, is thinking of following suit.
The report comes via Sky News, and according to the outlet, Twitter will start banning advertisements for initial coin offerings (ICOs), cryptocurrency wallets, and token sales sometime within the next two weeks. Also under consideration is a ban on cryptocurrency exchange advertisements, although apparently, Twitter might consider some exceptions in this category. While Twitter’s overall share of the online advertising market is low, its decision to limit cryptocurrency advertising is a very visible action given its importance in the social media sphere.
The reasons given for these bans are varied, but they mostly involve deceptive or misleading activities that lead to trader losses. Regarding its own ban, Facebook said in a statement in January, “Two of our core advertising principles outline our belief that ads should be safe, and that we build for people first. Misleading or deceptive ads have no place on Facebook.” For now, Facebook’s ban is very broad, and it covers all of its platforms including Facebook itself, Audience Network, and Instagram.
Google’s ban, on the other hand, is aiming its own efforts on “unregulated or speculative financial products,” of which cryptocurrency is just one element. The search giant removed more than 3.2 billion ads in 2017 generated by roughly 320,000 ad publishers. Cryptocurrency ads are being categorized as “emerging threats” and Google’s concerns with them mostly involve the unregulated nature of cryptocurrency markets. Google’s ban will go into effect in June across its AdWords network.
With many government agencies looking to regulate and limit cryptocurrencies and the markets springing up around them, the future of the exchange medium remains uncertain. Twitter’s move is just one more in a long line of efforts to limit their impact and to minimize the damage to unprepared traders based on deceptive promotional activities.
