
Facebook is banning all ads promoting cryptocurrencies - imartin2k
https://www.recode.net/2018/1/30/16950926/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-bans-crypto-advertising-bitcoin-james-altucher
======
jeeyoungk
Finally.

I've been intentionally clicking ICO ads so that I get targeted for more ICO
ads. It's been interesting.

\- Many of them have the most buttery smooth introduction video that was just
so compelling to stare at.

\- Many has business lines like, "The total market for car loans / social
media advertisement / game currency is N trillion...

\- The "team" page for them are mostly Russian / Eastern European. Some of
them have links to LinkedIn. I looked at their (I believe fake) profiles too.
(I don't know why would anybody use their real identity to pull such a thing).

\- Some ads are in Korean (understandable, I speak Korean and cryptocurrency
is hot over there), some ads are in Chinese including their landing page. Do
they expect people to land on those pages and drop money without reading
anything?

~~~
ryankshaw
I love your idea of clicking on facebook ads just to see what would happen for
a person that did happen to be in that cohort. Other things I have thought of
that would be interesting to do this experiment with is multi-level-marketing
BS, political ads catering to the opposite side of the isle, and "Preppers". I
would find that much more interesting than my current facebook feed that just
feeds me more of what I am already into.

Tangentially related, I recently spent a week in Hawaii and listened
exclusively to a local radio station the whole time. It occurred to me that my
view of what people did for fun, or where they grocery shopped, or what issues
were important to them, and generally "what the locals do" were largely
determined by who happened to be paying that radio station to play their ads.
And it was just an "ah-ha" reminder that in every group, culture, hobby, or
community there are a few advertisers that have an outsize influence on what
people think their own grass-roots culture is.

~~~
jxramos
Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their
importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the
shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine
that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of
course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the
little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the
hour. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Grasshoppers#Quotes](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Grasshoppers#Quotes)

~~~
stryk
what?

~~~
codeisawesome
The few “squeaky wheels” making the most noise - determining the very face and
presentation of a context (in this case a field full of cattle, in GP’s case a
handful of advertisers on radio) - is an old idea that even has prose to
describe it.

~~~
stryk
So, comparatively, a few bad screaming apples spoil the whole bunch? (should
clarify, I'm not disagreeing, just trying to relate)

~~~
dredmorbius
It's more that the apparent signal, whatever it is, is not the whole of
reality. And often gives quite the mis-placed view of same.

And if the name Edmund Burke means nothing to you, you've a whole universe of
enlightenment to attend to.

~~~
stryk
Ah ha, Ok, so the ones who are most vocal and/or visible are, more often than
not, not accurately representative of the <subject> as a whole.

I think the Olde-English-y sound of the original quote threw me for a loop. In
any case, I agree - that makes total sense.

~~~
dredmorbius
Quite often not.

Attention is the ultimately rivalrous commodity, and it's _very_ easily
consumed. Where true significance is carried by what's hidden or indirect,
this can be especially pernicious.

------
mmanfrin
The first ad I saw for Crypto was an ad for Bitmain -- it flashed through my
ad blocker enough for me to turn off the blocker to see it. It was Bitmain,
advertising a miner back in stock. Clicked it, saw it in stock, then
thankfully went back to the fb comments to see someone mention it was a
Punycode domain -- was a complete phishing site. There was an 'a' that was
actually some other glyph that had a small, nearly pixel-sized dot that made
it something other than an 'a'.

I am flabbergasted at why fb would allow punycode domains (especially when the
domain listed under the ad was the 'real' domain).

~~~
Faaak
Learning dvorak and playing around with its compose key, I was amazed by the
vast characters that there actually exists.

For a, you also have: äāȧą

I would fall for a domain like that.

Sadly, you can't blacklist all punycode domains as some are legits in
languages where accents are used

~~~
cstejerean
So allow those for the TLDs where it makes sense. Keeping them out of .com
seems like a reasonable trade off.

~~~
lmm
.com is supposed to be international. US-only content belongs in .us.

------
CryoLogic
I am guessing it has something to do with the fake ICO's taking advantage of
uneducated users (see Vyral for a great example).

But Facebook has made their entire fortune taking advantage of uneducated
users. So maybe they don't want competition?

~~~
wpietri
I think that's close. Scam artists slaughter the sheep, while Facebook would
rather keep shearing them.

~~~
TeMPOraL
As a sheep, I would prefer being shorn rather than slaughtered, so I'm with
Facebook on that one.

------
jonathanjaeger
This is just one of many things Facebook bans, including dating ads from sites
that aren't preapproved, payday loans, sketchy supplement ads, and the list
goes on. They even banned fantasy sports betting sites for a while (until the
legality got cleared up in NY somewhat).

------
meowface
I am sure real, legitimate ICOs must exist, but I have yet to find one. Can
anyone point to one that they strongly believe is legitimate?

~~~
giffarage
Basic Attention Token

[https://basicattentiontoken.org/](https://basicattentiontoken.org/)

~~~
wz1000
The Black Mirror episode "15 Million Merits" has something like this as its
premise.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits)

Some thoughts after going through the whitepaper,

> The BAT will, in early stages, be specifically tied to Brave browsers and
> Brave servers, along with verified publishers

Before this, they mention that other browsers are free to adopt BAT. However,
no mention is made of a way to ensure the user attention data reported is
legitimate. Presumably then only the Brave browser will be able to use this
token. A novel, trustless/decentralised way to verify user attention would be
of a paper on its own.

> Ad fraud will be prevented or reduced by publication of source code and
> cryptographically secure transactions. Ads served to individual
> browser/users will also be rate-limited and tied to active windows and tabs.

How will this be ensured without some kind of centralised whitelist of
signatures/keys?

If the system is going to be centralised anyway, why use a blockchain?
Blockchains are terribly inefficient append only DBs, and are only useful when
there is not even a single server on the internet that you can trust. There is
no point to using a blockchain if everything that can go on the blockchain is
going to be mediated by a company/government/organisation.

> A 300 million endowment is for early adopters of Brave and the BAT at up to
> 5 BAT/user

followed by

> BATs are meant only for experts in cryptographic tokens and blockchain-based
> software systems

So they expect to get up to 60 million "experts in cryptographic tokens" to
switch to their browser?

~~~
ifdefdebug
> However, no mention is made of a way to ensure the user attention data
> reported is legitimate.

Exactly. Looks like a race problem, again. Just looking at the diagram on
their site (user gets tokens for attention), I immediately thought "Write and
deploy attention signaling bots" ...

------
skywhopper
I haven't seen these ads, but this is probably the right move. The irony is
that Facebook has built its perceived value to advertisers, investors,
businesses, and audience alike on its ability to use deep learning to process
all these posts and images and ads and understand what they mean. But here
they are explicitly admitting they are unable to do that. It's a healthy thing
to do. But it's interesting that it's financial fraud for which they might be
directly liable, and not political propaganda, mental health, or explicit
racism that brings them to admit their limitations and draw a hard line.

~~~
eugenez
There is a difference between understanding the content (e.g. ICO) and
understanding what happens a few weeks after the content is interacted with
(e.g. someone runs off with the money). The first is doable, the second
requires prescience.

------
soared
Just like google banning rehab centers, if an industry is getting destroyed in
the news or by government regulators its generally not a good move to allow
people to advertise it on your platform.

------
HugoDaniel
They are about to launch their own coin[0]

"For example, one of the most interesting questions in technology right now is
about centralization vs decentralization. A lot of us got into technology
because we believe it can be a decentralizing force that puts more power in
people's hands. (The first four words of Facebook's mission have always been
"give people the power".) Back in the 1990s and 2000s, most people believed
technology would be a decentralizing force.

But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a
small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch
their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power
rather than decentralizes it.

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. But they come with the risk of being harder to control.
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."

[0]
[https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104380170714571](https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104380170714571)

~~~
mliker
> There are important counter-trends to this -- like encryption and
> cryptocurrency ...

How does this translate to "they are about to launch their own coin"?

------
singularity2001
these news sent the bitcoin charts below the magical $10000, a second time
after the "crash that wasn't", two weeks ago

will we finally see a real dramatic crash, or will it just fade away?

as much as I feel sorry for those that were duped, some part of me is urging
for the drama.

~~~
wyldfire
> will we finally see a real dramatic crash, or will it just fade away?

Aside from global prohibition there's not much that would destroy the value
that's created by this novel tool. Even then it would still have some residual
value.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I think that a global carbon emissons tax would do the trick.

~~~
criddell
It would just make the giant mining farms in China powered by hydro-electric
generators that much more profitable.

------
whataretensors
Someone should make a cryptocurrency social platform that rewards it's users
for sharing content and attention. Like the steemit of facebook. Anyone know
of any projects like this?

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _rewards it 's users for sharing content and attention_

You mean spamming content?

~~~
mv4
It's possible to tell the difference between genuine, authentic sharing, and
automation. Rewarding the right behavior will make spam go away.

~~~
Kalium
You're right! It's absolutely possible to tell the difference. And when it's
known, bad behavior can be punished and good behavior rewarded.

What do you think it takes to tell this difference with a high degree of
reliability (>4 nines) at scale (>1000/s)? How about in an environment where
people are strongly incentivized to find and exploit the weaknesses of your
approach? Is it just maybe possible that this might not quite be handwave-it-
away trivial? Facebook has had a shocking level of success in cutting down
spam with their investments in punishing bad behavior and rewarding good
behaviour.

Thank you for your thoughts. You're completely correct! It's possible to tell
the difference, and rewarding good behavior will drive out bad actors.

------
Mc_Big_G
...but they're totally OK with political ads paid in rubles. Fuck Facebook.

~~~
gonvaled
Are those worse than political ads paid in dollars?

------
aqsheehy
If only hacker news would follow suit

------
jinfiesto
Thank god. My neighborhood has a forum run by the HOA. It's flooded with posts
about neighbors running their own "crypto-businesses" trying to get other
people in on it. Based on a quick read, I'm pretty sure none of them are in
tech (not that that's prerequisite to understanding the technology) and most
seem to think BTC is magic internet money. If/when BTC tanks, the ensuing
bloodbath is going to be nasty.

------
olivermarks
Assuming rumours FB is developing their own cryptocurrency, along with Amazon
and Google, as has been suggested on various forums, isn't there a risk here
for them?

Banning potential competitors in what you could generously describe as the
dawn of the next internet (in many ways the crypto wild west is v similar to
early dot com days, complete with all the shysters and con artists) seems
unethical and may bring up anti trust issues eventually?

~~~
mv4
You are correct, that would be a risk for them (especially for FB) because of
how big they've become.

Anecdote: in 2014, I registered an account on Twitter called "tweetcoin". I
felt social networks would start developing their own currencies. I posted one
comment, "exciting things in the works". I was promptly locked out of the
account, and a new tweet appeared there (dated 2012!), stating "this is not
your account."

You can see it here:

[https://twitter.com/tweetcoin](https://twitter.com/tweetcoin)

~~~
davesque
Assuming you're being truthful, that is pretty weird actually. I'm going
through explanations for this in my mind and none of them make much sense.

~~~
olivermarks
very interesting...

------
rolyatyasmar
When I clicked the link I was served an ad promoting cyptocurrencies haha

------
wybiral
Doesn't "misleading or deceptive promotional practices" generally apply to the
entire business model of an advertisement platform disguised as a social
network?

------
simonebrunozzi
Finally! The most annoying ones were James Altucher's... I found them
particularly fishy. (don't know him so not sure what's behind them).

------
nicodjimenez
I'm going to miss the "crypto genius" ads.

~~~
corysama
You'll like this [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meet-man-behind-bitcoin-
geniu...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meet-man-behind-bitcoin-genius-ads-
internet-134441715.html)

------
Theodores
I am not a fan of 'the city' and I am not a Facebook user. However, today
Facebook have earned a small bit of respect from me. As for 'the city',
regulation now seems a very good idea, sure we have all been ripped off by the
fat cats of 'the city', however, the toxicity of traditional investments is
along the levels of 'sweets laced with sugar' instead of 'heroin laced with
fentanyl' which seems to be what the ico-scam-coin-nonsense is peddling.

I would like to see a crypto-addict brain under a MRI scan to see if those
graphs in tiddlywink prices light up the same bits of the brain that physical
addiction to a chemical makes.

In some way this story reminds me of when Lance Armstrong was discovered to be
cheating. Some people wouldn't believe it until he came on Oprah and spoke
about a few things. The evidence was overwhelming and yet there were some
devoted fans that held out. They didn't even have skin in the game (taking
PED's) but still they wanted to believe the comeback from cancer fairytale. It
did not matter to them that all of his team mates thought him to be toxic,
dedicated fans held out.

I don't think it is time to tease crypto-obsessed-people but once they have
lost all their monopoly money and tiddlywinks then I am sure they will start
to get the story. Fear and greed gets the better of people, so I am looking
forward to on-going 'so where is your lambo then, did you leave it on the
moon'? comments. Shame I didn't quit my job and spend all day investing in
tiddlywinks tethered to monopoly money. Oh well.

------
aussie1233
This is worrisome, mainly for one reason. Maybe one of the many ICOs might
turn out to derail Facebook's centralised + ads approach. With this Facebook
is basically attempting to prevent competition - or am I totally off?

~~~
aylmao
IMO you're totally off. ICOs and the ad market are pretty tangential.

~~~
aussie1233
I'm more referring to Mark Zuckerberg's new year post about investing in
decentatizlized tech and the power it provides. Will be interesting to see if
FB will do an ICO themselves or at least built there own blockchain to address
some of the data centralization concerns.

------
iblaine
People are shilling ICOs like they're selling a discounted big mac. The SEC
doesn't like it. Surely Facebook recognizes this and is protecting themselves.

------
thebiglebrewski
Thank god, this has been SO annoying to see all the time. I mark them as
spam/report them for being a scam.

------
matt_s
When will they block all political ads?

------
mrarjen
"Because they are mostly scam ads", haven't seen many non scam ads or highly
incorrect/false usage of material on facebook for years. This is more of a
thing for them to properly fix. They might as well ban most ads I was seeing
at least.

------
mtgx
= Facebook cryptocurrency to be announced within a year?

------
yorby
up next: Facebook is starting it's own currency...

------
bb88
I for one say, hurrah.

------
lez
Sounds like fb is planning to dive into the blockchain world.

------
perseusprime11
Twitter, What about you?

------
rsbartram
People should look at FB for what it is. A big shopping mall where everyone
goes to walk around and hang out. Don't like what goes on in FB. Stop using
it.

~~~
dymk
What a weirdly tangential thing to point out given the content of the article.
Is it possible to write a post on HN that isn't pointlessly critical of
Facebook, or have we dropped the facade of "intelligent discussion" when it
comes to things that the hivemind doesn't like?

~~~
dictum
> Is it possible to write a post on HN that isn't pointlessly critical of
> Facebook, or have we dropped the facade of "intelligent discussion" when it
> comes to things that the hivemind doesn't like?

I don't represent or consult any hivemind when I look at corporations,
especially the winky-smiley "let's connect the world!" with jaded cynicism –
but my conscience.

------
dandare
This is good for Bitcoin because...

~~~
Ataraxy
Realistically...because it will remain the biggest one to breach the general
public consciousness and by getting rid of such ease of access to promoting
scams and the like it will prevent (at least in the short term) the public
perception of cryptocurrencies from being tainted by a sea of scams that are
difficult for novices to navigate through.

------
allthenews
Ironic that such an influence on the price of BTC can be so centralized,
between this and news of tether. I'm sure FB announcing this alone could have
sparked a similar or smaller crash.

------
TheAdamAndChe
This is weird to me. Does Facebook currently ban advertisements for
commodities like gold? If no, then what's the difference between advertising
for bitcoin and advertising for gold?

~~~
fwdpropaganda
Well one difference is that bitcoin has no intrinsic value, ie, it's online
gambling in disguise. I believe that Facebook currently bans ads for online
gambling.

Don't agree? Ask yourself, why don't you see ads for other commodities, like
rice or iron? Because there's no money in that. So how come there's money in
ads for bitcoin? Could it be because bitcoin is not actually a commodity?

~~~
bhauer
I hear what you're saying, but am compelled to ask: what intrinsic value does
gold have?

~~~
anderspitman
I forget who said it, but I once heard something along the lines of, "if we
get into a situation where the value of gold goes through the roof, it'll be
because things have gotten really bad. And if they're that bad people are
going to realize pretty quick that they don't want gold. They want water
bottles and gasoline."

~~~
mulmen
I don't get it. If people realize they don't want gold why would the price go
up?

~~~
untog
I think the implication is that the price will spike quickly, then collapse
through the floor when people realise the true situation.

~~~
anderspitman
yeah sorry if that wasn't clear

