Facebook's 'Year in Review' brings up tragic events

In the case of Eric Meyer, Facebook's algorithm brought back painful memories -- and prompted the company to apologize.

Meyer, a Web consultant, lost his 6-year-old daughter, Rebecca, in June. When Facebook showed him his suggested year in review, his late daughter's photo was at the center.

"Yes, my year looked like that. True enough. My year looked like the now-absent face of my little girl," Meyer wrote in a Christmas Eve post on his blog. "It was still unkind to remind me so forcefully."

Meyer didn't blame the algorithms; they're "essentially thoughtless," he observed. But, he suggested, Facebook's human side could have tempered their flaws.

"Where the human aspect fell short, at least with Facebook, was in not providing a way to opt out. The Year in Review ad keeps coming up in my feed, rotating through different fun-and-fabulous backgrounds, as if celebrating a death, and there is no obvious way to stop it," he wrote. "The design is for the ideal user, the happy, upbeat, good-life user. It doesn't take other use cases into account."

Meyer wasn't the only one who was upset by the Year in Review's briskly automatic construction. Other users chimed in on Twitter with their displeasure.

"Won't be sharing my Facebook Year in Review, which 'highlights' a post on a friend's death in May despite words like 'killed' and 'sad day,' " wrote Time magazine's Andrew Katz.

"(M)y preview came up with my little boy & 'it's been a great year, thanks for being a part of it' He died at 15mos in Nov," wrote peitaballerina in response.

(CNN)