I'll answer here but it's relevant to most comments I got. True, we can have friendships which are not in meatspace as someone said here. And it's also true that even people you don't meet much could be meaningful friends. It's also true that Facebook presents it's self as a social network for connecting with our friends and this.might be seen as a failure in that respect. All that said, Facebook is a product, as a user you have the responsibility to use it wisely considering it's obvious limititations (i.e. nothing is perfect). If we consider we (the users) and Facebook to be in a customer-provider relationship , then they failed. But not morally, just professionaly, meaning, they provided a not perfect product. I just dont think we as users are Facebook's customers, we are the product. Even if we were, I still think the overall responsibility for our relationship with our friends is ours. I think what irked me the most was the use of this Facebook-algorithms-hurts-society template when it really isn't appropriate. No algorithms wouldn't change the outcome of this event. Without Facebook OP would still don't know about her friend's condition in real time,ormaybe at all. Usually this template is used to show effects of Facebook's algorithms on society that would never have happened if not for it's algorithms tuned for profit. If anything, this mindset that finds blame in Facebook s algorithms for an unfortunate but non novel event, is a much more interesting social effect. Meaning, the total natural delgation of responsibility to a company that uses you as product is pretty mind-blowing.