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From the newsroom of the Washington Post.

How are you? How are you? Hi, it's Robert. Give on at the Washington Post.

This is Post Reports. I'm Martine Powers.

It's Tuesday, March 19th.

Today, Facebook agrees to overhaul its policies on targeted ads,

couples separated indefinitely by the travel bin, and a ceremonial dance in Christchurch.

So Facebook has like one of the most lucrative ad platforms in the history of the world.

Tracy Jan covers Reese in the Economy for the Post, and she's been reporting on all the ways

that Facebook has built such a massive advertising system. In this video, we want to show you why

you see ads on Facebook, and what information advertisers can use when they're planning their ad campaigns.

There's a video posted by Facebook from way back in 2010 explaining how its ad targeting systems

work. And it's because they have so much data about you. They know what you like, who you like.

They can know if you are interested in camping, or if you're English as a second language speaker.

You get started in our online advertising system. The first step in creating the ad is the design.

So for the longest time, this obviously is a very valuable treasure trove for advertisers,

and they marketed themselves that way. Advertisers can literally go on and check a bunch of boxes on

who they want to include, as well as who they want to exclude. You'll select which users you want to see

the ad, and you can choose some basic demographic information like age and gender.

...