If Facebook had to be somewhat uncompromising in showing how awful the world could be in last week's Year in Review, this week's more personalized version does a lot more to hide the bad. Facebook has just released 2015's Your Year in Review, its annual nostalgia-ful feature that lets users look back on the things they shared over the last 12 months. Only this time, users will be able to filter out bad memories — like breakups and loved ones passing — so the collection is as cheerful as possible before they share it.
"We heard feedback last year that we need to do more to select the photos that are most enjoyable to people and make it easier for them to edit the photos they see and share in their Year in Review," said a Facebook spokesperson. "So we've applied a unique set of filters to Your Year in Review to reduce the chance we’ll show you a photo you don’t want to see. And for the photos that our algorithms don't catch, we’re giving people control over the photos in their Year in Review."
It works like this: when Your Year in Review appears in the News Feed, Facebook will automatically suggest 10 photos from the past year, doing its best to filter out the bad stuff before they're surfaced. Users can then change those selections and choose any photo they personally uploaded or were tagged in while hiding that fling you thought was the real thing but only lasted three weeks.
Facebook is taking extra care with people's memories
Giving users granular control over what they see and share reflects how careful Facebook is being with people's memories online. After the launch of the "On This Day" tool in March, users quickly found themselves seeing painful shared experiences they would rather not have seen again, like the deaths of friends. The company updated the feature in October to address the issue. Your Year in Review is available to most users right now.