As the most commonly used social networking website in the world, Facebook has connected millions of people from all over. It is evident that Facebook affects daily lives, but what happens when daily life ends?
Through the flurry of friend requests, statuses, and mobile uploads, students are beginning to question, what happens to the Facebook account of the deceased, how does Facebook find out about the death, and is it wrong to keep the page up.
Max Kelly, Facebook’s head of security, in an Oct. 26 blog post, said that the company’s policy of “memorializing” profiles of users who have died consists of taking them out of the public search results, sealing them from any future log-in attempts and leaving the wall open for family and friends to pay their respects.
Many students have stated their confusion with the establishment of immortality through Facebook, and their feelings towards the idea of their page remaining open.
Adam Dulsky ’14 is unsure about the death policy on Facebook, but was adamant about the idea of his Facebook page staying up.
“I would still want my page to be there because then my family and friends will have a way to remember me,” Dulsky said.
Although Dulsky feels comfortable with his Facebook page staying up, he is uncomfortable with the idea that people could still write posts on someone’s wall.
“I wouldn’t want people writing stuff on my wall. If you can’t say it when someone was alive, you shouldn’t say it when they’re dead.”
Matthew Wormser ’11, expressed his concern with the matter. Wormser feels that deciding whether or not to keep his Facebook once he is dead is a tough decision.
“It’s weird to have pictures of you all over the web when you’re dead, but at the same time, it’s a nice way to be remembered,” Wormser said.
Wormser feels that it is unsettling that people on Facebook he is not close to can mourn his loss through Facebook.
Several other students, who were granted anonymity due to personal grievances, expressed their concern when seeing a deceased student come up in the mutual friends suggestion.
“I felt so sad and freaked out when a distant friend who recently passed away came up in my suggested friends. I wasn’t really sure how to react, I just knew that it shouldn’t have come up- it was just wrong,” the anonymous source said.
In order to stop this from happening, Facebook has encouraged people to inform the company when someone close to you has passed away, so that they can remove the Facebook member off of the suggestion component of Facebook.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1932803,00.html#ixzz1DFEbdSO2
