Facebook blocks users’ ad blocking efforts

Advertising on social media is here to stay as Facebook offered its 1.71 billion users the best alternative to get rid of online ads instead of resorting to ad blocking softwares.

The Silicon Valley company has introduced changes in the social media platform to let Facebook users adjust their ad preferences for a better browsing experience.

ad preferences based on their interests. This is meant to complement, rather than distract, users as they browse Facebook.

“As a result of what we’ve learned, we’ve introduced tools to help people control their experience, improved how we decide which ads to show and created new ad formats that complement, rather than detract from, people’s experience online,” he said in a statement.

“We’re building on these efforts by making ad preferences easier to use, so you can stop seeing certain types of ads. If you don’t want to see ads about a certain interest like travel or cats, you can remove the interest from your ad preferences.”

Ad blocking reduces funding to Facebook

While Facebook is aware of user complaints about online ads on the social media site, Bosworth argued that advertising is necessary for the social media site to operate.

“Some ad blocking companies accept money in exchange for showing ads that they previously blocked — a practice that is at best confusing to people and that reduces the funding needed to support the journalism and other free services that we enjoy on the web. Facebook is one of those free services, and ads support our mission of giving people the power to share and making the world more open and connected,” he said.

As an alternative, the Facebook has redesigned its ad formats ad performance and controls to address the underlying reasons people have turned to ad blocking softwares.

“Rather than paying ad blocking companies to unblock the ads we show — as some of these companies have invited us to do in the past — we’re putting control in people’s hands with our updated ad preferences and our other advertising controls,” the Facebook executive added.

Even if online ads will remain as a staple component of one’s Facebook experience, Bosworth said the tech company will continually listen to users’ feedback and adjust accordingly to “make advertising better for everyone.”

Multimedia advertising continuously drives the earnings of Facebook, one of the 10 fastest growing companies in the US. The social media company also ranked 157th on the latest Fortune 500 list.