Why The Crypto Ban Is Unethical And Contradictory

A couple of months ago saw some internet giants weigh in on cryptocurrency advertising and issue all out bans to advertising within their platform. The giants in question included Twitter, Facebook, Google and most recently, Microsoft. The advertising bans came to the fore in order to ‘protect’ customers of the respective services and to reduce the risk of them falling for scams etc. Of course, we believe that establishing education programmes here would be more beneficial to customers but hey, each company decided to eventually go down the prohibition line. As it stands, we can’t really see what this has achieved other than it upsetting a number of people. Well now, more opinions regarding this ban are starting to surface, specifically with Facebook and Google in mind. According to BTC Manager:

“Both Facebook and Google have issued statements that show their interest in cryptocurrencies, specifically their underlying blockchain technology. This sparks the undeniable question: are the advert bans much more than an ulterior-motivated decision to check fraudulent activities?”

Interestingly, according to BTC Manager, the CEO of Blackmore Group, Phillip Nunn has said:

“I understand that Facebook and Google are under a lot of pressure to regulate what their users are reading, but they are still advertising gambling websites and other unethical practices.”

See the full article by BTC Manager for yourself, here- https://btcmanager.com/google-and-facebook-under-fire-for-unethical-cryptocurrency-ban/ What do we think of this? Well, as stated above, both Facebook and Google have made it pretty clear that they want to be investing in blockchain technologies and thus have made moves to employ new people to make this happen, in fact, Facebook now have a dedicated taskforce working on applications for the blockchain. I can imagine the likes of Mark Zuckerberg also has a fair amount invested in cryptocurrencies, it would be very surprising if he didn’t anyway! So, we need to consider a few things, firstly, will these regulations last? Probably not, advertisers are already finding a way round them. Next, are customers going to be protected? Yes, in theory, as within this they have less access to clicking on malicious content. The main question is though, are the customers really the motivations here? As stated, Facebook and Google still advertise other risky and problematic industries, so why single out the blockchain? Without sounding like a conspirator, it really does seem as if within this prohibition, both Facebook and Google, no doubt Twitter and Microsoft too, all have external justifications for this.