Facebook crypto ad saga continues: Removes competitor ads

• Facebook revisited its crypto currency ad ban in June 2018.
• Removal of Bloom ads raises  questions on how Facebook views competitor ads.

Facebook has been on a reform journey for cryptocurrency advertisements since the beginning of this year. The social media giant banned crypto-related ads at some point this year before allowing them to run again. The same approach was followed by other social media platforms including Twitter and Google.

On October 30, Yahoo! Finance run a story saying that Facebook had removed ads from Bloom; an online-based identity management service mainly focused on providing protection for identities online. According to Yahoo! Finance, Facebook explained that the firm was offering financial service products that are deceptive to customers.

On the contrary, Bloom defended itself saying that it does not offer any financial services to its clients, although people can access loans via its platform. Bloom believes that its ads have been banned due to the similarity in the services it offers, particularly with Facebook’s identity service used for “login”.

As mentioned in the first paragraph Facebook embarked on an ad reform policy in January 2018. The company removed all crypto related ads and all the content deemed to be misleading and deceptive to the public. This was to ensure that users on its platforms are protected from spammers and websites that push their traffic using Facebook. However, the aggressive approach to cryptocurrency related ads was dropped in June 2018 noting that they will be taking more stringent way of dealing with ads on the website as opposed to banning them entirely. The company also promised to continue monitoring the tech and revising the policies.