Facebook has been encouraging users to share their "Year in Review" slideshows. The feature was created in order to display the highlights from the past year of a user. While some users liked the idea of using the feature to share their moments of fun and triumph with their friends, others thought that the feature had simply brought back painful memories.
Web designer Eric Meyer wrote a blog post wherein he described the feature as "Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty." He is one of those who avoided making a "Year in Review" post.
"I didn't go looking for grief this afternoon, but it found me anyway, and I have designers and programmers to thank for it," said Meyer. "In this case, the designers and programmers are somewhere at Facebook."
Meyer's comment came in after he saw a picture of his daughter with the caption "Your Year in Review: Eric, here's what your year looked like!" The picture was also surrounded with colorful images of balloons and people who seemed to be dancing and having a good time.
Meyer's daughter died this year. She died of brain cancer on her sixth birthday.
"Yes, my year looked like that," continued Meyer. "True enough. My year looked like the now-absent face of my little girl. It was still unkind to remind me so forcefully."
Many of the "Year in Review" previews carried the caption "It's been a great year! Thanks for being a part of it." However, the default tagline failed to consider those users who may not want to look back at a painful year.
"Facebook's 'Year in Review' feature, for instance, seems like such a clever and obvious idea that everyone should want to create their own greatest hits," said Gigaom founder Om Malik. "Except life isn't perfect. There is death, disease and tragedy, and they are all painful memories. And perhaps, smarter, empathetic software, like a reasonable person's response, would avoid bringing up particularly painful memories."
Meyer believes that users should be given an easy way to opt out instead of seeing the feature being constantly promoted. For him, seeing his daughter's face being shown repeatedly seemed like the feature is celebrating her death.
"Facebook's algorithm doesn't understand what makes one photo more popular than another," said journalist Selena Larson. "More importantly, it can't understand why, even if a photo really is your year in a nutshell, it's inappropriate to present that photo among colorful, dancing shapes."
Meyer's post became viral and has earned a number of comments. Most came from users who share his sentiments. Soon enough, it has also earned an apology from Facebook.
"The app was awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy," said Jonathan Gheller, product manager for Facebook. "We can do better - I'm very grateful he took the time in his grief to write the blog post."
Gheller said that his team is finding ways to improve Facebook's Year In Review. He had also personally sent an apology email to Meyer.
