Facebook wants users to weigh in on the ads shown on their news feeds, which is why the social network has rolled out a new tool that lets users provide specific feedback on why they hide ads.
The tool builds upon an earlier feature that allows Facebook users to hide specific ads on their news feeds. But with more than 1.5 million advertisers on Facebook's advertising network, it is important for the social network to come up with more ways to let them deliver more relevant ads to users. Thus, it came up with a new feedback-generating tool that prompts users to choose from a list of reasons why they opted a certain ad.
Facebook has long allowed users to hide ads by clicking on the little arrow button that appears on the upper right corner of each ad. A menu will then appear which allows users to choose from options such as hiding the ad, hiding all ads from a specific advertiser and getting notifications about the ad. For users who want to be a little more helpful, they can also send Facebook a message that the ad they are seeing is useful.
However, for those who say they no longer want to see the ad, Facebook will prompt them to choose from a variety of reasons why they want to hide ads. These choices range from "It's not relevant to me" to "It's offensive or inappropriate" and "Something else." The list, however, does not contain an option for users who simply do not want to see any type of ad on their news feed.
Facebook says this will allow the social network to deliver "ads that we think they'll find interesting." Facebook product manager Max Eulenstein says Facebook saw a significant decrease in the number of ads that people reported were either offensive or inappropriate after it stopped showing ads that were reported by a small subset of tester users who hid the ads and told Facebook they were inoffensive or inappropriate.
"If someone doesn't want to see an ad because it's not relevant to them, we know we didn't do a great job choosing that ad and we need to improve," Eulenstein says in a blog post. "If someone doesn't want to see an ad because it's offensive, it probably isn't a good idea for other people on Facebook either."
Facebook says it will also start listening more to users who rarely hide ads instead of users who hide all the ads they see on their news feed, saying that users hid 30 percent less ads if they let Facebook know why they don't want to see certain ads.
