I talked with a professor of advertising to make sense of what this means for all of us who use those social media platforms.

WhatsApp says that users will start seeing ads in parts of the app, as owner Meta Platforms moves to cultivate a new revenue stream by tapping the billions of people that use the messaging service.

Meta has confirmed it will introduce ads to WhatsApp, ending a long-standing “no ads” policy and marking a major shift for the world’s most-used messaging app. The advertising rollout will begin globally over the next few months.