WhatsApp has started inserting ads into Status and Channels: Here’s how to hide and control them

If you don’t particularly like an ad, you can hide it directly from the display. With ads in the Channel, it is enough to open the promoted channel, touch the Sponsored label and select Hide ad. For ads in Status, in the ad itself, open the menu and select Hide ad, and if necessary, you can also report the ad.

WhatsApp has also added options to manage ads so you can see and adjust your ad settings. This is in the app’s settings under Account, then Ad preferences for Status & Channels, where you can view recent ads, change settings, and manage what’s shown to you.

The most important thing is that ads are targeted based on a limited set of data that increases with updates, such as language, country or city location, Channels you follow, and how you respond to ads, and not based on the content of your messages. So, even though this is just one more channel in a series that turns to bombarding the audience with ads, WhatsApp claims that our chats are still safe and that those ads will not be generated based on what we are communicating about. Whether it will really be like that, especially in the long term, remains to be seen.