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UK watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has announced a major crackdown on deceptive crypto advertisements throughout the nation. ASA has said that most crypto advertisements are misleading and do not put any cautions that people may be unaware of. UK’s crypto crackdown is starting with both, offline and online advertisements. The foreseeable campaign will kick start with taking down ambiguous ads from social media platforms.
Director of complaints and investigations at the ASA, Miles Lockwood, told Financial Times that the crackdown campaign will be “hard and fast” if there are violations.
Mike Lockwood described crypto as a “red alert” priority, as it may pose a threat to the less aware and vulnerable audience of economic and business commercials. He said ASA would notify crypto businesses, following which the digital currency industry will be required to add disclaimers to their otherwise misleading ads.
“We see this as a critical and priority area for us…Where we find problems, we repress harshly and quickly.”, Lockwood told Financial Times.
The Search & Shut Down Begins
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) made announcements to safeguard the public from falling prey to deceptive crypto ads that may lead them to make an uncalculated decision. FCA warned the consumers from buying trending crypto products and said that the consumers “should be prepared to lose all their money,”. However, the FCA hadn’t had much success in spreading the word.
Two months ago, ASA condemned a crypto advertisement that was put up on the UK’s subway walls by Luno, the cryptocurrency exchange, and a subsidiary of Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group. The ad was claimed to be “misleading” as it did not provide any caution or disclaimer. The slogan read, “If you see Bitcoin on the tube, it’s time to buy.”
Without a disclaimer, the ad is encouraging people to buy the highly expensive Bitcoin without providing them with information on the volatile nature of the currency.
With ADA’s upcoming campaign, they will not only put down deceptive and questionable ads, but ADA has also assured to begin sweeping the offline and online advertisement clean by appointing search parties.
“We recognize that there are certain types of media that we have not been able to fully address so far,” Louise Maroney, Head of financial complaints at ASA, told Financial Times.
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