How to Opt Out of Facebook Ads in 3 Easy Steps?

Facebook, the biggest convivial online social media platform, could be a pain in the butt with its advertisements. If there is one thing which I, alongside a slew of like minded people, don’t like, it is oversharing of information. You never know when you have ‘Liked’ something at Facebook and the whole world knows it because of the ad thingy going on.

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f you are not familiar with Facebook ads, you should read a little bit about them here. In simple terms, we are talking about those name based Ads that are generated on the basis of personalized user information. Let’s say, you recently ‘Liked’ something, it will show up on your friend’s profile’s right side as ‘XYZ Liked Blah Blah’. Got it?

How is that an advertisement? Based on your choices, if something is showing up on other people’s profile within your network, and that too at a place where normally Facebook ads are displayed, it is pretty much an advertisement. It is true that a lot of people still don’t think that such activities can be classified as Ads.

However, this is exactly how Facebook is training end users these days. At times, Facebook displays a lot of Ads in such a manner that they don’t appear to be advertisements. In fact, people simply take them as textual activity updates about their friends, family members, class mates and etc.

Another example of these ads could be a recent accomplishment of yours. You did something that you think is more relevant to closest friends on Facebook. You don’t want to share this information with anyone. But at some point, Facebook tricks you into using some apps or something that sends out the word on your “accomplishment” to the entire community.

Under ideal circumstances, Facebook shouldn’t have done what is being talked about here. The so-and-so “friend” is supposed to navigate to your profile to get the updates, rather than seeing them in the side bar or any ad space reserved for advertisements.

Good news is that you can disable/ opt out of these ads very easily. Over the period of time, Facebook has gone through a lot of security setting changes. Even the most regular users sometimes don’t understand how these settings work, or where exactly is a specific option for making changes to something that isn’t needed anymore.

• The first step is to log on to your Facebook account. (Duh, it is obvious, isn’t it?)

Take a look at the screenshot below. You will see a small arrow at the right side of your name. Hover your mouse over to the top right side of the screen to see this. Click this arrow and a small menu will drop down – just like the one shown in the picture.

• Go to Account Settings Option and Click It

On the left side of the screen, there will be lots of options. You need to click the ‘Facebook Ads’ link from the entire list.

• Click ‘Edit Social Ads Setting’ and you will see a menu similar to the image below.

At this point, all you have to do is select “No One” and click the ‘Save Changes’ button. That’s all you need to know about making the new privacy settings against ads to go into immediate effect. All your friends will be unable to see your recent interests or activities that are going to be automatically updated on their side of the account.

If you believe that name based Facebook ads are not that harmful, let us know why?