Facebook is remaining tight-lipped over user access to its memories feature. Photo / Getty Images
Facebook is remaining tight-lipped over user access to its memories feature. Photo / Getty Images
Opinion
"Sorry, this feature isn't available".
"Matt, thanks for coming to see your memories. Currently, this feature isn't available to everyone".
Despite 60 million users around the world who are able to access Facebook's On This Day feature - otherwise known as "Memories" - I'm one of a host of usersthat Facebook has decided to shut-out.
And after a two-year wait, it looks like I've been blocked for good.
Yes, while all of you reminisce about that awful haircut from five years ago, or wonder why you ever dated that dude a decade ago, Facebook has denied me the pleasure of my own uncomfortable hindsights. And trust me, there are some awkward outfits I've worn over the years.
Facebook's On This Day feature reminds users of old posts from yesteryear via their Facebook feed.
According to Facebook, it appears in the left column of your News Feed page under the apps section. But then again, I wouldn't know. Because I don't have it.
Since March, 2015, an average of 115 million Facebook users access their Memories daily; and while it's so nice to see that piece of pie you ate for dinner with your in-laws three-years-ago, spare a thought for the population who are forced to look up their own memories, MANUALLY. Ugh, the pain of it all.
It wouldn't be such a problem if the feature was a new rollout. Sure, we could wait a few months, we are patient people. In fact, we did. We waited. We wondered. We pondered. Then we pleaded.
But after nearly two years in the making, here we are, still scratching our heads, wondering, is it just us?
The feature was something that Facebook publicly promised to reach all of its 1.6 billion active users.
I'm here to tell those of you who are missing out, it's not just you.
Well, Facebook, sorry doesn't quite cut it. While you bathe in the glory of good times, some of us are stuck in Memory limbo here.
It's weird. Facebook announced On This Day way back on March 24, 2015, via a blog post, which claimed "we've been testing this feature and it will begin rolling out globally on web and mobile".
Thanks for your questions. We will look to get you a response early next week.
And yet while it continues to deny users the service, the feature has been expanding. In October last year it rolled out filtering options. On its one year anniversary it's design became larger and more colourful. So clearly, Facebook is continuing to invest in the feature - just not for all its users.
On its community page, Facebook users continue to complain about the lack of access, with little reply.
On another page, which directly asks the question, Why does it say the feature isn't available when I try to view "On This Day"?, it's top answer is simply: "It wasn't available to all users until now." Which, might I add, is incorrect.
It's quite baffling. I can't understand why Facebook is remaining so tight-lipped about this? Here is a service that is denying a portion of its users the right to access. After two whole years. And they do it so flippantly and with such disregard for the denied. Why couldn't Facebook just be honest with us and tell us what's really going on? I smell a conspiracy.
So, where to from here, fellow Facebookers? Will they heed our call? Mark Zuckerberg, are you out there? Did I sit through 120 minutes of the Social Network for nothing?
Perhaps it's time we took a stroll to our local scrapbooking shop and picked up a few supplies; because it doesn't seem like we'll be getting an answer any time soon.
