Facebook Sorry For Bringing Up Sad Memories In ‘Year in Review’

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Facebook now and again comes up with some interesting apps at random times. The latest one is this year’s “Year in Review” app, which posts to the user’s Timeline a synopsis of all the major events that took place in their life in the current year in chronological order. The app has been largely appreciated, but it has made some major goof-ups.

Facebook Sorry For Bringing Up Sad Memories In 'Year in Review'

Not all had a great year

The app not only picked the good but also the bad events as well for the synopsis. This led to mass agitation among users, and later the social network apologized for the mistake which caused pain to many.

The highlights of the past year were taken using Facebook’s algorithm to supposedly bring joy and happiness to users through the video it compiled. Of course while these highlights included major events like marriages, child births, trips and so on, for a few, it included memories that brought immense pain, such as the death of a loved one.

One such sufferer is Eric Meyer, a writer and web design consultant who lost his daughter this year to brain cancer. He saw her picture in the “Year in Review” app video. Meyer was so hurt after viewing it that he expressed his feeling for the app.

“I didn’t go looking for grief this afternoon, but it found me anyway,” Meyer wrote on his website.

Facebook apologizes

The pain and hurt caused by it was deeply regretted by the product manager of the app at Facebook, Jonathan Gheller, who told The Washington Post, “[The app] was awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy.”

Gheller further said Meyer’s concern was being taken into account by the app development team at Facebook, and they are working to improve on it.

The feature was not very much liked by a few other people for other pettier reasons too. Many felt the feature was being too pushy, as it consistently reminded users of its existence. The app made the video using the photos and moments that grabbed the most interactions. The app, however, also offers users an option to customize their “Year in Review” before they choose to share it on Facebook.

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