The British advertising watchdog marks the “Red Alert” priority for advertisements

Given the UK’s stricter regulatory stance on the crypto industry, a large local advertising organization has announced a crackdown on crypto advertising.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK’s independent advertising regulator, plans to make a big push this month to hunt down and shut down misleading crypto advertisements. , reported the Financial Times on Friday.

Miles Lockwood, the ASA’s complaints director, said the agency would specifically target irresponsible crypto advertisements displayed online and on social media platforms, adding:

“We consider this to be an absolutely important and priority area for us. Wherever we find a problem, we solve it quickly and energetically. “

Lockwood clearly states that the ASA has identified crypto advertising as a “red flag” priority over financial advertising. As a result, the regulator is now stepping up its ability to track suspicious ads online using technologies like scraping and artificial intelligence. The ASA also works with major technology platforms to remove misleading advertisements as part of their own efforts. The agency also plans to issue warnings and may require players to include disclaimers in their advertisements.

“We recognize that there are certain types of media that we have not yet been able to fully address,” said Louise Maroney, director of financial claims at ASA.

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According to the report, the ASA has renewed its crypto advertising monitoring efforts as most crypto investments fall outside the scope of the UK’s strict rules on advertising traditional financial products. That year, the agency paid close attention to advertising in the crypto industry and removed some of the advertisements from crypto exchanges such as Luno and Coinfloor.

Despite the ASA’s growing attention to the crypto advertising industry, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority does not believe that crypto investments are primarily due to advertising. “Only a small number of people buy cryptocurrencies based on advertising, but those who do tend to have worse results,” the FCA wrote in its crypto consumer research published in mid-June.