Facebook apologises for grief caused by ‘Year in Review’...
Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 4:36 pm
If you're a facebook user, then you might have noticed the app making rounds on the user profiles these days, named 'Year in Review'. This has gone bad, as per the Social Media Giant. And social networking site Facebook has apologised for the bad memories its new 'Year in Review' feature fermented for those who had seen bad things happening in the year, specailly people who lost their close family members, friends and homes in 2014.
The app in question is an automated feature, whcih brings to the user’s timeline a series of images and posts from 2014. Think about the plight it might have brought to this web designer when he read the line from app saying "it has been a great year" brought grief to a web designer who had seen his young daughter's tragic death in the year. Eric, the web developer, named the app as "inadvertent algorithmic cruelty" as it forced him to relive the pain of tragic death.
[quote="Eric Meyer in an article titled "Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty""]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.[/quote]
Facebook does admit that the idea obviosuly is not the best one after a lot of complaints flew in from differnt resources. “The app was awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy,” said product manager for Facebook, Jonathan Gheller. “We can do better — I’m very grateful he took the time in his grief to write the blog post,” he added.
The app in question is an automated feature, whcih brings to the user’s timeline a series of images and posts from 2014. Think about the plight it might have brought to this web designer when he read the line from app saying "it has been a great year" brought grief to a web designer who had seen his young daughter's tragic death in the year. Eric, the web developer, named the app as "inadvertent algorithmic cruelty" as it forced him to relive the pain of tragic death.
[quote="Eric Meyer in an article titled "Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty""]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.[/quote]
Facebook does admit that the idea obviosuly is not the best one after a lot of complaints flew in from differnt resources. “The app was awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy,” said product manager for Facebook, Jonathan Gheller. “We can do better — I’m very grateful he took the time in his grief to write the blog post,” he added.