"Year-in-Review" feature has Facebook apologizing to at least one person

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- Facebook has apologized to at least one person over its Year-in-Review feature.

The default tagline for the feature is, “It’s been a great year! Thanks for being a part of it.” Facebook then compiles a series of photos from the user’s page, highlighting the biggest moments of 2014.

However, for some users, the feature is bringing back some painful memories.

According to the Washington Post, Eric Meyer, a web design consultant and writer, lost his daughter to brain cancer on her sixth birthday.

Meyer wrote that he had actively avoided looking at previews of his own automatically generated post, but Facebook put a prompt advertising the feature in his newsfeed, prominently featuring the face of his dead daughter, surrounded by what appears to be clip art figures having a party.

Meyer says he knows Facebook didn’t intend to cause harm, but blogged about the design flaw.

"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," Meyer said in his blog post.

In a statement to the Washington Post, Facebook’s Jonathan Gheller said he reached out to Meyer to apologize.

" was awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy. We can do better," Gheller told the Washington Post.

CLICK HERE for more on this story via the Washington Post.