Facebook Gets Brickbats For 'Year In Review' Feature

Facebook wanted to please its users; instead it terribly annoyed some of them.

When it rolled out its annual "Year in Review" feature recently, Facebook thought it would delight its users by having a photo slideshow of their "best" moments in 2014 with just one click of their mouse. But instead of getting "likes," the special feature turned off a number of users.

It's all because of the algorithm or automated program that Facebook uses in picking and highlighting a user's post that attracted numerous comments and likes this year, topping it off with the tagline "It's been a great year! Thanks for being a part of it."

But since the automated program comes from a faceless machine, it selected posts without regard to the users' expressed feelings. Hence, some of the highlighted posts turned out not to be the best but the worst moments of one's life for 2014.

One Facebook user, writer and web design consultant Eric Meyer, expressed his disgust in his Facebook "Year in Review" by publishing a blog post on Christmas Eve. The cover photo of his "Year in Review" shows an image of his daughter surrounded by clip art of balloons and people dancing.

The problem is that his six-year-old daughter could no longer see this since she died of brain cancer in 2014.

Meyer writes: "And I know, of course, that this is not a deliberate assault. This inadvertent algorithmic cruelty is the result of code that works in the overwhelming majority of cases, reminding people of the awesomeness of their years, showing them selfies at a party or whale spouts from sailing boats or the marina outside their vacation house.

"But for those of us who lived through the death of loved ones, or spent extended time in the hospital, or were hit by divorce or losing a job or any one of a hundred crises, we might not want another look at this past year.

"To show me Rebecca's face and say 'Here's what your year looked like!' is jarring. It feels wrong, and coming from an actual person, it would be wrong. Coming from code, it's just unfortunate. These are hard, hard problems. It isn't easy to programmatically figure out if a picture has a ton of Likes because it's hilarious, astounding, or heartbreaking."

The product manager behind Facebook's "Year in Review," Jonathan Gheller promptly reached out to Meyer to admit and apologize for the indiscretion.

"[The app] was awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy," Gheller said.

Meyer was just one of many who expressed strong reactions, mostly unfavorable, to Facebook's "Year in Review" feature.

Here are some of the comments from other Facebook users:

"So my (beloved!) ex-boyfriend's apartment caught fire this year, which was very sad, but Facebook made it worth it." — Julieanne Smolinski 

"The spirit of Facebook, and the spirit of the year-in-review, isn't new. It's just a faster, easier, more efficient way for obnoxious people to be obnoxious." -- ThePriceofEggsinMalta

"... I have no problem if you post 'RIP Grandma' posts. Simple, tasteful memorials are sweet, and even therapeutic. But please don't give morbid details, don't post HOSPITAL pics or even worse, memorial pics. I've seen it all. Have some respect for your private life and don't use it to get people's pity. Same with break ups. Jesus, stop telling the world that you were dumped by someone else and you can't get out of bed. Dignity!" -- VwolfShut Up!

"I only post pictures from superhero comics, so mine looked like I'd spent the year punching dragons while dressed as Big Barda." -- HijabiRockstarOwllovesyou

"My year was just fine, enjoyable even, and it showed through the Year In Review, but I was extremely annoyed that I didn't have a choice to opt out of viewing it. One day, in order to log in to Facebook it showed up and there was no way out but through." -- Brian Williams dreams of cat gifs

"Obviously it was unfortunate that these people had to relive these traumatic events of the year due to this app, but I think saying Facebook 'forced people' is a little hyperbolic. It's not like they created the app for you unawares, and presented it to you on your feed." -- Xobyte

"I didn't post mine, mostly because it was kind of hilariously misleading. The opening photo was a picture of me holding a friend's baby (that had been taken and posted by the friend literally the night before the thing showed up on my timeline). I got married this year, and the page showing that momentous occasion also included 3/4 photos of me or my husband and me with that same baby. I seriously met this one baby one time this year and held it for a total of 5 minutes, but the baby was 45% of that review. I most certainly don't have a baby of my own, but damned if that year in review didn't try to broadcast *SHOTGUN WEDDING* to all my former coworkers and high school classmates who don't know what I'm up to.

"It also included a page of pics of me with a relative who died this year, including one with him dressed like a skeleton from a Halloween party a few years ago. It was sad but also I think he'd have found it funny." -- discopilot

"I have been depressed most of the year, my sparse statuses and the few pics (more like pics of my life I could not/ would not expose) are few, so I hid and removed that shit posthaste. Now I have to contend with 'my times' posts I hide. I hate social media algorithm productions." -- Sequaciouslicious

"Broke up with my boyfriend of 7 years recently, and the pic for the review was a fake engagement ring photo we posted because we thought it was cute and funny." -- BigRedMama

"How dare a free website introduce a user experiences that is not 100% satisfactory to everyone." -- MotownMJM