Facebook Misfires with “Great Year 2014” Compilation

Facebook has done it again! The social app is waning in popularity and after their latest end of year campaign, we are guessing they may lose a lot more subscribers than they anticipated.

In between opening gifts and assessing how much damage you’ve caused your already weary bank account, you must have been privy to the “It’s been a great year” banner that is probably still populating your timeline. If not, you better pay attention because whether or not you concur, Facebook is declaring 2014 your best year yet with or without your consent as most of us annoyingly discovered.

You basically have no choice in the matter – all you have to do is behold the final product, which consists of a video compilation of all the “lovely and amazing” highlights that according to senseless calculations comprise of a year worth toasting.

But in reality, there is no conceivable way of using “likes” and “shares” lumped in with random images to measure a user’s level of happiness or fulfillment. This is evident in Eric Meyer’s case who was tortured by the “Year in Review” banner that showcased his daughter who tragically passed away from brain cancer several months ago. Meyer was so moved by Facebook’s deplorable tactics that he penned a piece about his heartbreaking experience. In it, the writer and web designer called out the social app for casually fooling around with the emotions of users without any respect for the potential consequences, “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”. “Algorithms are essentially thoughtless. They model certain decision flows, but once you run them, no more thought occurs. To call a person ‘thoughtless’ is usually considered a slight, or an outright insult; and yet, we unleash so many literally thoughtless processes on our users, on our lives, on ourselves”.

We couldn’t have summed it up better! The idea that we have become vulnerable to the wiles of robotic inclinations that have the power to dictate the trajectory of our existence is a troubling state of affairs and hints for a menacing future.