Facebook is taking a stand against ad blockers.

The social network announced on Tuesday that it has tweaked its tech to prevent ad blocking software from working on its desktop site. Ad blockers already don't work in Facebook's app, where most of its mobile traffic comes from.

Simultaneously, the company is updating its existing ad preferences tools to make it easier for individuals to tailor their experience and remove themselves from specific customer lists.

Facebook first highlighted ad blocking technologies as a significant risk factor in its annual 10-K filing in January, noting that they have impacted its ad revenue "from time to time," particularly on PCs. But the proportion of time users spend on the network via desktop versus mobile is declining, so Facebook's ad chief says that today's move is more philosophical than money motivated.

"This isn't something that we need to do for revenue, this is something that we really believe in," Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth, Facebook's ads chief tells Business Insider. "For us, it's a very principled stance on how Facebook should be delivered."

Facebook wants you to see better ads

When you sign up for a free Facebook account, you give the company data and agree to let it track your activity so that advertisers can target you depending on your demographics and interests. As with on the wider web, seeing ads is how you "pay" to use the service. Ad blocking tools upset that balance.

"We're trying provide a middle ground here where if people are experiencing ads on Facebook they can use the ads preferences controls to make those ads better," Bosworth says. "Hopefully, we'll form more and more of a partnership with consumers, where we're providing them with ads that improve the experience and that they don't feel they need to block."

Even if you use Facebook's new advertising tools, you'll still see the same amount of ads. Those ads should just be more relevant to you, since you'll be telling Facebook what you don't want to see. That's beneficial for Facebook, too, because its ads are more valuable if they're actually effective. Right now, ~97% of Facebook's 6.4 billion in revenue comes from advertising.

As the number of people using ad blockers has swelled, the whole industry has been paying attention. Google has been spearheading an "acceptable ads" policy and the US Interactive Advertising Bureau has come up with suggestions for how publishers should mitigate the problem.

Ahead of its changes, Facebook commissioned a study by Ipsos Research, published publicly today, that found that the main reasons people used ad blockers included avoiding disruptive ads (69%), ads that slow down their browsing experience (58%) and security /malware risks (56%). Facebook believes that by serving fast-loading, customizable, native ads it can side-step these concerns.

"This is an absolutely legitimate choice for Facebook," Randall Rothenberg, head of the IAB, tells Business Insider. "If you want to use the service you're going to get ads. And these are ads that they're going to make sure that are tailored for your experience and which you have enormous amounts of control over."