It has been an interesting time for Facebook and its relationship with cryptocurrencies ever since they made a precedent setting move to ban adverts[1] on their platform that had anything to do with cryptocurrency in January this year.
The social media giant has since updated their policies to once again[2] allow cryptocurrencies to advertise on Facebook, although it has continued its ban on ICOs. This move is being seen as a positive for the cryptocurrency space, which has earned back a major advertising platform on which it can reach a large number of users.
However, behind the scenes, all is not as it seems as cryptocurrency-related content continues to get caught in the web.
Setting a precedent
On January 30, it was announced[3] that Facebook would be updating its advertising policy prohibiting ads that use “misleading or deceptive promotional practices[4],” this includes ads of cryptocurrencies and ICOs.
Even back then, the message from the social media giant was confusing, as the decision by Facebook came just after its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a personal post that he had a desire to study cryptocurrencies further[5]:
“There are important counter-trends to this — like encryption and cryptocurrency — that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people's hands […] I'm interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services."
‘Intentionally broad’ ban
The post announcing the ban did mention that the policies would be revisited later down the line, and that it began as ‘intentionally broad[6],’ however, this direct U-turn has come as quite a surprising move from Facebook, even if it is only
