Facebook is now permitting U.S. users to block certain kinds of promotional content that appear in their News Feeds that begins with alcohol and parenting-related ads.
The social giant has already made settings allowing users to choose topics that are of interest to them, such as music or food; however, this is the first time Facebook has permitted its users to proactively block specific ads.
A spokesperson from Facebook informed the Business Insider that this move is a pilot test that permits users to hide ad topics they do not want to see. The social media platform plans to begin with alcohol and parenting as these are the most common topics that showed up in their research.
How Facebook Showed Ads To Users
In a post by Fortune, Facebook launched its Canvas platform on February 2016. This platform works through this process: a smartphone user clicks on an ad in their news feeds that will lead to open a full-screen, rich media page within the site.
This was created because of the tripling in size of mobile sites since 2011. This has resulted to a slower load time that annoys users to sit through an ad. Canvas, in an opposite manner, will be preloaded by Facebook and ads will show up in one second in the news feed of the user.
Users' Personal Data Points Used By Facebook To Target Ads
Facebook targets ads to users through 90 personal data points. These information are collected on members based on internet connection, location settings, and on-site activity.
The ads are based on the personal data users provide through profile updates, comments, and posts.
Daily Mail UK reports these data points. Some of these include location, education level, school, field of study, users in long-distance relationship, users who have utilized Facebook payments, and others.
