Twitter is banning “a range of cryptocurrency advertisements”, including initial coin offerings (ICOs), becoming the latest internet giant to announce restrictions on the sector amid growing concerns about scams, Sky News reported on Sunday.
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The ad ban will come into force within two weeks as part of a clampdown on unregulated financial products. Details of such arrangements, however, are as of yet unconfirmed.
The move follows similar bans made by advertising rivals, including Facebook and Google, which banned all cryptocurrency and ICO adverts in an effort to prevent people from advertising products and services associated with misleading promotional practices.
Sky News wrote that it understands that prohibitions currently cover advertisements for “initial coin offerings (ICOs), token sales, and cryptocurrency wallets globally.”
It added: “Twitter may also ban all ads for cryptocurrency exchanges, with some limited exceptions, when the policy is launched.”
Interest in ads for cryptocurrency and related content has surged in the last year as their prices rocketed. That growth has prompted internet companies to announce new guidelines prohibiting adverts that relate to virtual coins as some of that activity drew skepticism from regulators. At the time, Facebook said those products are “frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices”.
Meanwhile, it’s not clear yet if Twitter will join Google and Facebook to stop ads for other financial products like binary options, CFDs, Forex and spread betting.
Google, the largest provider of digital advertising on the internet, announced last week that firms wanting to promote those products would need to be registered with the relevant financial regulators before they could advertise again.
