Facebook's 'Friends Day' is kicking up unwanted memories: Feature can bring up images of dead loved ones and exes

In celebration of its 12th birthday, Facebook has launched 'Friends Day,' generating sentimental collages and reviving years-old moments to fill your news feed with loving memories.

Unfortunately, such emotional concepts are a beyond the reach of an algorithm.

For many people, Friends Day is instead kicking up the dirt you've worked hard to forget.

Users are reporting seeing pictures of exes and selfies they wish they had never posted.

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Facebook began as a rating site for students at Harvard and has since become the social network that all others are compared to. To mark the latest so-called Friends Day, Facebook has launched a feature that creates a collage of a user's photos and posts designed to celebrate their friends on the site (grab shown)

The feature is even pulling old photos of loved ones that have since passed away.

Many users have taken to Twitter to confess their woes toward the algorithm's attempts at humanity.

One user tweeted, ‘Thank you Facebook for putting all my exes in my ‘Friendship Day’ video. 

'Maybe on ‘Pet Day’ you can put pics of my dead childhood parakeet!’ 

Another commented that, 'So far, my Facebook ‘friends’ video has shown me a cousin I haven’t spoken to in years, Pierce Brosnan on a horse, and my dead grandfather.'

With Friends Day, Facebook is attempting to celebrate the important friendships in your life.

But, without humans to be the judge of emotional value in each post, the algorithm used instead is largely missing the mark.

Some Facebook users have even reported that they barely knew some of the people featured in their Friends Day collages.

In a blog post commenting on the feature, Facebook said: 'Today marks Facebook's 12th birthday.

'Each year we recognise this day as Friends Day and invite the world to celebrate and reflect on the importance of connecting. 

Unfortunately, such emotional concepts are a beyond the reach of an algorithm. For many people, Friends Day is instead kicking up the dirt you've worked hard to forget

Users are reporting seeing pictures of exes and selfies you wish you'd never posted. It's even pulling old photos of loved ones that have since passed away

'To help our community celebrate the importance of friendship, we're delivering a personalised Friends Day video to millions of people around the world. 

'This Friends Day, take a moment to connect with your friends, share your Friends Day videos, and post using the hashtag #friendsday.'

The videos stitch together what is claimed to be 'special moments with friends' in a short film that can be edited and shared.

People can view their video at the top of News Feed, or by clicking 'Watch Yours' below a friend's Friends Day video.

The site also updated what it calls its degrees of separation statistic which it uses to highlight just how connected the world has become through Facebook, and the web. 

Over the past five years, the degrees of separation between a typical pair of Facebook users has decreased to 3.57 degrees, down from 3.74 degrees in 2011. 

With Friends Day, Facebook is attempting to celebrate the important friendships in your life. But, without humans to be the judge of emotional value in each post, the algorithm used instead is largely missing the mark 

The videos stitch together special moments between friends in a short film. People can view their own video at the top of News Feed (pictured left), or by clicking 'Watch Yours' below a friend's Friends Day video. The videos can also be edited (pictured right) before being shared

Zuckerberg recently announced that WhatsApp had surpassed one billion active users, with Facebook's own Messenger app also active for 800 million people. Photo-sharing app Instagram, bought by Facebook for $1 billion (£683 million) in 2012, currently has around 400 million users.

All of which surpass fellow social media giant Twitter, which has around 320 million users, and in stark contrast to Facebook, is struggling to grow. 

Zuckerberg recently described Facebook's business as 'thriving', and repeatedly mentioned a mission of 'connecting the entire world'. 

The social network has already co-founded Internet.org, an enterprise that is working on solar-powered drones that aim to beam internet signal to remote parts of the world currently lacking connection. 

However, it has also been heavily criticised by privacy campaigners and anti-bullying groups. A number of studies have even linked it to rising levels of depression and anxiety.  

Last year, researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia found that the social network can lead to depression, especially among those who use Facebook to size other people's lives up against their own.

The study of 700 students found that the website can be 'a very positive resource' if it is used as a way of chatting to friends, but that it can become seriously troubling if used in 'surveillance' mode.

However, experts said Facebook users could help gird themselves against depression by remembering that many of their 'friends' on the social network are putting a rose-tinted gloss over their lives when they post there.