Many will no doubt jump to the conclusion that facebook is scared about cryptocurrencies and steemit. What many fail to notice, however, is that things aren't always that simple. Now I'm not saying they aren't worried about steemit taking over or something else that makes the decision easier. What I'm saying is that they might actually be doing a sensible thing from the perspective of society as a whole.

The ethical dilemma of powerful technology

Imagine, you create a social network, with millions of people joining. You then put enormous amount of effort to make your huge company profitable. You realize you have all the data you need to write algorithms to promote products and services to just the right people. You make it happen. Now, do you let every drug dealer and gun runner advertise using this awesome technology you developed?

This ethical dilemma results in choices that need to be made. Where do you draw the line? How can you promote proper use of your technology? Is it ok to advertise a candidate in the presidential elections? Is it ok to let people advertise things they believe are good, such as religions? What about when someone wants to advertise a hundred million dollar market that barely exists? Even better, a 30 million dollar initial coin offering that no one really understands?

The problem isn't showing the advertisement it is separating legit cryptocurrencies from scam

For facebook, it must be a lot easier to ban all cryptocurrencies, even bitcoin rather than explain why they chose one cryptocurrency over another. If they were to let people advertise bitcoin, why wouldn't they let people advertise ethereum? If they let people advertise ethereum, then why wouldn't they let people advertise token sales that are based on ethereum?

Sometimes it is easier to prevent accidents from happening than hope they don't.

My intention is not to promote the actions of facebook

I'm not saying facebook couldn't have someone check the icos that want to advertise on facebook. I'm not saying facebook couldn't decide to cut ICOs out and draw the line there. The choices they make might not be the best, but they are better than allowing people to get cheated out of their money, because the scammers that could be using facebooks advertisement algorithms could figure out how to make facebook advertise to those most easily betrayed.