According to a recent Washington Post report, the new cryptocurrency developed by Facebook, Libra, has already started being nefariously promoted by the worst in the social networking community with a recent scam: Facebook ads that are offering the cryptocurrency in a span of less than a month after the announcement of the project, even though it doesn’t even exist publicly yet.
Facebook is already notorious for legions of fake accounts within the social network, and now many of these fake accounts impact the credibility of Facebook upcoming digital currency, Libra. The cryptocurrency is expected to launch in the first half of next year, yet a lot of different fake Facebook accounts already list and offer a supposed Libra digital currency.
This can be a big blow to the Facebook’s credibility since Libra is being fraudulently promoted on its own social network even before its launch. Just last month, Facebook presented the whitepaper of its global digital coin project Libra and a wallet service called Calibra. The crypto project is set to be launched in 2020.
Several of the fake Libra ads introduced an alleged discount in a pre-sale stage of the not yet launched Libra coins, while others included pictures of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, or advertising material from Libra, the report notes.
A glaring example of fake online ads of Libra is the Buylibracoins[dot]com website, which duplicates Libra’s emblem from the official Libra.org website and render users promotional offers with leading cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC)trade and invest in Libra.
Elka Looks, communication manager at Calibra, stated:
“Facebook removes ads and pages that violate our policies when we become aware of them, and we are constantly working to improve detection of scams on our platforms.”
Consequently, a number of the fake Facebook and Instagram accounts were removed on July 22, but only after they were reported to Facebook by The Washington Post. However, external websites, such as the one mentioned above, remains available and operational with no external entity to control them.
Criticism of the Libra Cryptocurrency
Facebook’s Libra project has faced a lot of criticism by many government bodies and regulators across the world. The social networking company itself banned cryptocurrency and ICO advertisements on its social media platform, which was later partially lifted. Moreover, Facebook itself governs and regulates the cryptocurrency. This is primarily against the basic decentralized and unregulated concept of cryptocurrencies, and that also has been subject to some heavy critique.
According to Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University:
“Facebook has a huge global network and a large financial muscle. But the only way Libra will work well as an exchange medium is if everyone can trust it. And that’s the big question right now: will there be enough confidence in Facebook?”
This is a good question. At least for the time being, there appears to be very little trust in Facebook by the general public.
