Facebook has apologized for upsetting a grieving father by featuring his dead daughter’s picture in its “Year in Review” app that has been showing up on users’ timelines this month.
In a blog post titled “Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty,” web designer Eric Meyer wrote how distressing it was to see a close-up picture of his young daughter’s face in the automatically generated “Your Year in Review” post Facebook has been urging users to share on their timelines.
Meyer’s daughter Rebecca died in June on her sixth birthday.
“To show me Rebecca’s face and say ‘Here’s what your year looked like!’ is jarring,” Meyer wrote. “It feels wrong, and coming from an actual person, it would be wrong. Coming from code, it’s just unfortunate.”
Meyer said he realizes it wasn’t a “deliberate assault” on Facebook’s part. But he said it wouldn’t be difficult to ask users if they want to see Facebook’s take on what their year was like.
Meyer’s post was widely read and shared, prompting other Facebook users to complain about upsetting photos and memories featured in their “Year in Review” apps.
In a subsequent blog post, Meyer wrote that Jonathan Gheller, product manager of Facebook’s “Year in Review” app, reached out to him with a sincere apology before his story made headlines.
Gheller also told The Washington Post that the app “was awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy.” Gheller said his team is working to improve the app.
Meyer also wrote that he owes Facebook and the “Year in Review” team an apology because he never intended to malign the company or the people who worked on the app.
