For some time now, Facebook users have been exposed to fake adverts. With the help of celebrities and fake news, the posts try to lure people to buy something that is claimed to be bitcoin.
Some of the people that are being used in the fake news are the Swedish Spotify founder Daniel Ek and the South African-American serial entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Has been spread before
The fake articles claim, among other things, that Ek and Musk are investing large sums of money in a new startup called “The Crypto Revolt” that is linked to bitcoin. There were reports of similar Facebook ads in October, then under the name “The Bitcoin Revolution”.
For example, in the recent adverts on Facebook, it is alleged that Elon Musk will leave the US electric car manufacturer Tesla to fully focus on the new bitcoin project.
If you click on it, you first come to a fake news article, and then to a site that encourages the visitor to register and deposit at least $250 in order to start buying bitcoin.
The sites with the fake articles are designed as news sites and seem to have gotten graphical inspiration from the established news agency CNN. The fraudsters also seem to work systematically and globally because these fake adverts are displayed in several languages around the world.
The fact that the articles about Elon Musk are false is now also confirmed by Tesla themselves.
“We can confirm that the rumor about Elon leaving Tesla is obviously false”, Maria Lantz, communications manager at Tesla, writes in an email to Trijo News.
Facebook continues to make ad money
This is not the first time that advertisements containing false information are spread on Facebook. The social media giant has previously announced that they are working to try to get rid of this kind of fake posts and news.
Nevertheless, scammers are allowed to continue to advertise on Facebook, which also means that the social media giant continues to make ad money on them.
Trijo News has contacted Facebook for a comment, but they have not yet answered.
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