Facebook Now Blocks Ad Blockers
Facebook has long been one of the main reasons people use ad blockers, but in The New York Times, they detail Facebook’s newest plan to bypass these ad blockers, starting today.
Today, at some point, Facebook will flip a switch on its desktop site and all ad blockers will become useless. It’s hard to say exactly how this will work right now, but the Times reports the following:
To turn off blockers, Facebook targets digital ad signifiers that blockers use to determine if something is advertising. Changes to the Facebook desktop will make advertising content indistinguishable from non-advertising content. Facebook said that in order for ad blockers to circumvent these changes, they will have to start analyzing the ad content themselves, which is a costly and time-consuming process.
Of course, using ad blockers is not only to remove annoying ads from websites, but also to maintain privacy. It is currently unclear how this change will affect privacy-focused extensions such as Disconnect , which restrict tracking but do not block ads. From the blog post right after the announcement, it looks like at least Adblock Plus is taking it all personally.
Facebook Blocks Ad Blockers, But Seeks To Make Ads More Relevant | New York Times