Facebook will show ads to people with adblockers

Facebook says it will show ads to people who visit the social network via the desktop and use an adblocker. It is not yet clear how the social network wants to counteract the adblockers.

According to the New York Times, who spoke with the chief executive of Facebook’s advertising division, the social network will display ads in such a way that they are indistinguishable from other content. That should make it impossible for ad blockers to block the ads. That would only be possible by also analyzing all content completely.

The reason for showing ads to people who use ad blockers, according to Facebook, is the introduction of a new tool that gives users more control over the content of the ads they see.

Facebook says it has researched why people use ad blockers and states that this is often because users find ads distracting or do not match their preferences. People would also like to have control over the advertisements they see and the company wants to respond to this with the new setting options.

Logged in users who click on the advertising preferences page will see what information they are presented with advertisements. The preferences are based on information from the user’s profile and “actions you take inside and outside Facebook,” according to the page. Users can add or remove preferences here according to Facebook in order to influence the advertisements they see.