Bitcoin Forum

Today I was scrolling Facebook Newsfeed.

Suddenly the ad of Libra coins came in front of me. I thought maybe Facebook was advertising itself! Because i knew for a long time that Facebook doesn't accept crypto ads.

Since i saw the sponsor, i became interested in the topic, so i visited the page.

Go to the page and i find that page is fake and the website that Libra Coin has provided on page that website also fake. They run fake pre-sale on the website!

I was wondering how did Facebook advertise this scam website?

How did this ad exceed the rules of Facebook ads?

For those who believe that Facebook advertising everything is real, this is a great proof to the fact that not all Facebook ads are real.

I think many people may have seen this ad and bought Scam Libra and lost their money.

0% should not be trusted on online, without verifying anything. Scammers always target newbies.  

Beware from scammers because a small mistake can do a lot of damage.

Only trust their official Website:- https://libra.org


More proof is here about scam libra:- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5186622.msg52525557#msg52525557

2nd one:- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5189097.0

The facebook won't accept crypto ads right?. Maybe the facebook itself made the ads or may be there's someone else who pay facebook to advertise these said fake coin. It's either of the two that facebook is behind or a person/a group of people who are agaisnt the cryptocurrency might do it. If there is. I don't know how these ads are advertised by facebook.

There are tons of fake websites imitating Libra since inexperienced (and maybe naive) facebook users seem to be an easy target for scammers. Here's a list of already known fake sites and it's still growing (Libra coin isn't even out yet): [Update][22/19] Complete List of Fake Libra Sales Website (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5169287.0) (libratokensale scamsite is included there)

But the fact that such scamsites are included in facebook ads is very concerning. That's another argument against facebook's incompetence and the reason why facebook isn't a good choice as a platform and Libra coin might go the same way. I'm in doubt that facebook can be trusted right now where no money is involved, so why should it be better if money is involved?  :D

Well, it's a bit strange. Facebook doesn't allow crypto related advertisements, so, how they approved this one? Did you at least reported this ad? Because many people may think it's legit and fall into this scam.
And I think it's not correct to say that's not correct to say that Facebook is misleading people. There is simply no benefit for Facebook to such ads, it gives only damage. Because people will fall into scam instead of investing in real Libra tokens.

Google and Facebook don't moderate their ads well, they probably only have some not very good algorithm to detect potential phishing and other scams, but there's no verification by real humans before they for approving an ad, which is why things like this happen. They host millions of ads, so it's probably not feasible for them to hire people to review them.

I haven't seen this one yet :D

There are many people on Facebook also sharing the "uplibra airdrop", clearly a badly done scam with a horrible "logo".

I don't know how anyone can believe this.

https://i.postimg.cc/hGQgz74T/Up-Libra-opt.jpg

I don't trust Facebook and all it's scam copy/paste clones.

We busted and reported a bunch of this websites in Scam Accusation section:

UpLibra I reported on September 1st,
and I even got attention of their Fake team and minions.

More details and fun stuff to read here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5180645

Full List made by @masulum
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5169287.0


Many of them are blacklisted by Metamask now,
so I would advise people to use this browser extension.

As far as I remember Facebook allowed crypto ads quite some time ago, it's just that they're requiring documents to prove legitimacy of the business.

Also, let's not forget that Facebook doesn't have people that manually approve ads one by one. There are SO MUCH advertisers on Facebook, hence they simply use software to approve/decline the ads. Advertisers could simply not include terms like "crypto", "bitcoin", "blockchain", etc, on their ads, and to simply just label it mostly in the finance category to get past the filter. These ads mostly doesn't take long to get removed though, if enough people report it or if Facebook quickly detected it.

Already reported from my side. I can still see the ad in my newsfeed. I do not know what the reason is hidden behind. Why Facebook system not ban this scam ad? 

This is really terrible thing that Facebook itself promoting scam of their own coin. Facebook should notic about this scam since peoples already report about this ads.
So when someone report a post it should review by human. But wondering why that ads still appearing on Facebook. I know during approve ads there is something automated system and they might not detect scam. But since someone already report it should down immediately. Otherwise really it would mislead peoples who are not aware about their original website.

It will most likely be manually checked yes, but it can also take hours. There are just so much scam Facebook ads and ads with sensitive images(sexual, gore, etc) being reported that it will take time for their employees to get to this specific one. Meanwhile, a lot of legitimate ads are being declined for some reason(I'm in a few marketing communities).

It's really amazing that a project that may not even be realized already causes so much confusion, and that someone is actually buying fake Libra coins which do not exist at all. I know the vast majority of people who are interested in the cryptocurrency have only profit in mind, but at least one needs to be informed about the basics before investment.

If and by any chance this coin ever become reality, it will be stable coin pegged with fiat currency, so what is the point of buying such coin? This is just a waste of time and money for ordinary users and supporting of new centralized currency.

That's actually what's most mind boggling. Assuming people actually got scammed by this(very possible), they're pretty much "investing" in a stablecoin. It just shows how right now, even though it's already freakin Q3 of 2019, there still is so much dumb money; which I thought in 2017 that people would've learned by now.

I wanted to check what the scam's sales pitch is due to curiosity, but fortunately the scam site is down already.

Facebook changed its policy in regard to the crypto announcements about a year ago.
After the initial ban, they re-changed their idea and from May, if I remember correctly, they re-admitted the possibility for the people to announce ads about the crypto world.
It is normal that in a period like this some people try to take advantage of the most by inserting scams on facebook, a social media where the culture generate in relation to the crypto is very low since it is populated by over a billion people.

You can read more about this ban here: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/22574/facebook-reverses-its-policy-barring-cryptocurrency-ads

Because filters didn't catch that yet i bet.
Soon it will be automatically send to verification by people (based on keyword libra).
They not up to date with every "buzz" keyword, old company.

This has been reported before like this one --> https://www.techradar.com/news/facebook-libra-scams-already-on-the-rise

Facebook same as google needs to filter out those ads that comes in to them.

I think it should be mandatory for Facebook to check the ads manually before they get listed and displayed to users. And if the ad contains any harmful content (like scam / malware or similar) the ad should be rejected. If a scam advertisement of their own coin isn't noticed how easy could it be for other scammers to place obvious scam ads and users will get scammed? It's quite concerning.  
That's just the same like if Theymos wouldn't check the displayed ads here and an advertisement of "official Bitcointalk coin" would pop up...

Sounds crazy? That's exactly what happened on Facebook.  ::)

Facebook is responsible which ads are chosen and it looks like they are doing quite a lazy job there.

I'm not going to defend Facebook here, but there are just so much ad proposals that it would take so much manpower to manually check the ads one by one. They're most probably going to need to hire hundreds and thousands of people if they'd go the manual route. Even though they could definitely afford it, I definitely don't think they'd do it. It's quite inaccurate to compare Bitcointalk, a niche forum(though still big), to pretty much the rank #4 website globally(via Alexa), and the biggest social media site today.

That would be an ideal solution, but such a move would be just an additional expense for the company, and we all know that such companies are focused solely on maximizing profits. Also, people who would check such things would have to be experts, and their labor cost is much higher than for some ordinary worker.

It's not just that things like this happen to FB, it is same with Google or any other company. They have a business policy that users report "bad things", and after that each case is examined, with the priority of those with the most reports.

Companies also benefit from non-verification because users pay in advance, and after the advertisement is removed for good reason they keep the money. I think they have protected themselves well, something like "we are not responsible for the content of advertisements displayed on our site".

The solution is very simple, it is called AdBlock/uBlock -> Download -> Install -> Keep it ON -> No bad ads :)

I don't think checking ads manually would require much additional staff to get this job done. Let's assume facebook is hiring 10 people for doing it. If they are doing a full time job, each employee may need 15 minutes to check if it's a legit ad (most likely even 15 minutes is way too much), I guess they'll get many scam ads and they are much easier to spot (up to 1 minute). So I assume 10 people can check 40 ads per hour. They are working 7 hours per day and 5 days peer week. Final result is 1,400 ads per week or more than 6,000 ads per months. Only ten people to check ads, facebooks main scource of income (besides selling user data) - should be affordable for a global company with more than 2,700,000,000 users. But unfortunately facebook cares a shit about such things same like user support, blocking accounts with no reasons, bugs everywhere - and they are busy selling user data.

Hundreds or thousands of people are definitely way too much for just checking ads. So I don't accept that excuse for facebook's lack of getting easy things done.  ;)

And yes, the size between Bitcointalk and Facebook isn't comparable but I assume that theymos isn't checking 24/7 if new applications for ads are blatant scams (like Bitconnect or obvious ponzis). Maybe it requires up to 1 or 2 hours per week to check it. (4 to 8 ads). So the scale of (my assumed hypothetically) manual ad checking system for facebook would have a scale which is 700 - 1,400 times bigger.


They might be protected but it's another sign that facebook can't be trusted and is treating their users like shit. It's like someone here wearing really obvious scam signatures where a fake team was detected, that user would be tagged immediately.

I completely get what you're saying, but you're probably underestimating how many ads are being submitted on Facebook's ad platform. That also includes test ads that needs to be manually checked if they'd go the manual route. While I definitely cant give you a number, trust me that the ads that are being submitted are A LOT. I'm saying this as someone who is active in the internet marketing niche.

And Facebook did the same thing again. Facebook approved fake Libra scam project's ad!   ;D

Read more :- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5189097.0

Dont  ever  trust  facebook when its  come to  money.  Zuckerburg  always think about its  interest first. all they  want is  money  that's why  they  allowed such  post to be  sponsored.  look Facebook always automatically updated it belong apps without  your permission. Video  post is always reviewed manually before  it  get posted i think they  can do the same  when its  comes to  advertisement but they don't do that because  they  want their  money.  Facebook is not trust worthy to  be trusted with  our  money that why i don't like Libra Project.       

The above quote is a joint statement issued by the French and German governments. (https://arweave.net/IqNd3cRAashiGz6SssDumubD2LHIQbewZpruQrE8nYY)

I wonder if after all this mess with Libra (including public discussion, political opinion, hate from the crypto community, etc) Facebook decides to allow crypto ads on their site.
And I agree with a comment above: don't trust Facebook when it comes to money.

Yes, most likely I'm underestimating the number of ads in my calculation and it's far more than 6,000 ads per months, I don't have any numbers too. But even if the numbers are bigger it shouldn't be a problem for them to check which ads are legit. According to Statista (https://www.statista.com/statistics/273563/number-of-facebook-employees/), Facebook has 35,000 employees and that's not much for a company of that size. They are saving costs wherever it's possible so in reality it should be far bigger already. While ads are generating their main revenue it's inevitable to hire a few hundred more and set them aside for checking ads until they can ensure to weed out scams.  
We all know that a part of Facebook users aren't the most intelligent ones understanding how some things work (especially in crypto) and scammers will take advantage from it.  

And if Facebook isn't capable of selecting ads they aren't capable of running a global currency safely.


I get you that it'll cost Facebook a little bit of their earnings but my main point is that they have to ensure to review them because it's their main revenue source. They are just out for the profits and the users are their useful idiots.  :D

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LOL  :D :D

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I don't like it too, Facebook has lost any credibility very long ago. Profits first, users last.

People have seen heard or read something on Facebook's coin but they have no idea what it is, and scammers are using this opportunity to scam people, I also saw one on my feeds I failed to screenshot it, but it will definitely hurt Libra Coin's cause.
I have not posted an ad on Facebook but it seems you have the option to edit your ads once approve, so scammers are abusing these options to lure people to invest in a fake Facebook coin.

It's a concern that anoyone considers Facebook to be a legitimate source of information. There have been enough scandals about them manipulating peoples behaviour, I don't see how anyone can trust them. As for ads, Facebook is obviously huge and can't moderate everything manually. There is a degree of automation here, and obviously it's not good enough if stuff like this can get through. Presumably their ban on crypto doesn't extend to Libra, their own product, so there's the obvious loophole for scammers to exploit.

They are offering marketing on the owner of the ads I believe it's an algorithm, if you put tag on your ads the algo will catch it and they will offer you to market your ads on how many people on a budget, only if the ads are reported that Facebook marketing team will look and take down that ads, they do not have a team to look the legitimacy of the ads and this is really unfortunate.