You'll soon be able to find out why annoying posts and adverts are showing up on your Facebook feed

For years the secrets behind why users see certain, often unwanted, adverts and posts, have been hidden by Facebook.

However, according to the social media platform's blog, a new 'Why am I seeing this?' feature will give users more information about the posts they see.

What will it tell me?

After tapping on the 'Why am I seeing this?' button on the corner of a post, users will be given various information.

For posts, it will show you the reasons why that post has appeared such as being friends with the user who shared it, being in a group, or engaging more with that user's posts.

The tool will then allow you to change your settings for the person or group, reducing or increasing the amount you see their posts.

For adverts, as well as showing demographic data such as age, location, and gender, the tool will also show you if the advertiser holds personal details which match your profile.

This could be an email address or a phone number which the advertiser has matched with your profile, allowing them to target you with ads on Facebook.

Why are Facebook doing this?

Ramya Sethuraman, product manager at Facebook who wrote the blog, said the move is to allow users to more easily understand and control what they see in their news feed.

She wrote, "During our research on 'Why am I seeing this post?', people told us that transparency into News Feed algorithms wasn’t enough without corresponding controls.

"People wanted to be able to take action, so we’ve made it easy to manage what you see in News Feed right from this feature."

Facebook has been dogged by multiple transparency and advertising scandals, including the Cambridge Analytica allegations and accusations of allowing so-called 'dark ads' on the platform.