Can Twitter and Facebook Deal With Their Dead? 284
Barence writes "One and a half million Facebook users die each year. Twitter faces a similar mortality rate. Yet the social networks have been relatively slow to deal with the uncomfortable business of death. Only this week has Twitter finally unveiled a policy for handling the accounts of dead members. Yet the process for closing the accounts of deceased relatives is complicated, while reminders to follow the accounts of people who have long since passed away continue to arrive, adding to the pain of grieving friends and relatives."
I don't know about Twitter, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
A very good friend of mine was murdered in October of 2008 (for those of you in Toronto/Ontario/Canada, Bailey Zaveda, the girl that was gunned down while outside of a bar having a cigarette) by someone she didn't know and had no involvement with.
Anyway, her facebook account still exists, and I don't see the problem with that. Everyone knows what happened to her, and her profile served as part of the grieving process for many people. To this day, they post their latest happenings in their lives on her wall, say happy birthday to her, etc.
I mean, if the interest here is to get the facebook.com/username or twitter userid back, then revoke those after say, 1 year of inactivity, but I don't see the harm in leaving the account there for people to reminisce, grieve, or whatever.
Junk mailers manage it (Score:2, Interesting)
When someone dies, their junk mail stops. It's pretty creepy when you notice this.
DJ AM (Score:1, Interesting)
http://twitter.com/dj_am
This might be a little uncomfortable... (Score:4, Interesting)
I was at the Federated Social Web Summit this July, and over drinks, I was discussing this issue with other open source social networking developers. I mentioned that I've had a few friends pass who still have a presence on the social web (livejournal, facebook, myspace), and I really appreciate being able to go back and remember them that way. I also mentioned that their parents have access to their accounts, so people would get especially unnerved when that "online now" icon would show up or when they would pop up in a chat list, because their parents were checking or closing out their account.
I had a little too much to think, so I posited the idea of a system which learns, based on what you've posted, how to post like you after you're gone. Not a full representation, but a way to continue to create an impression of you. Less like Sonny from I, Robot, and more like Mal from Inception. A shadow of a person, based on what people remember. Or, more specifically, what the system remembers. Since conceivably, generations born in 2000 and up will live their whole lives on the social web, systems will have a lot of information with which to recreate a person's personality. When I suggested this, someone asked, "Why would I have to wait until I died to use this?"
I won't be coding this into Appleseed, because for now, it violates the "Don't Be Creepy" rule that sometimes people break when building prediction software. But there's no reason it can't be done, which means at some point, someone will do it.
Michael Chisari
Appleseed - http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/ [appleseedproject.org]
Re:I don't know about Twitter, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
If only my friends and relatives can be as creative with the remains of my corpse...
Re:Perhaps a "key escrow" feature? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't really know why this would be a problem for Twitter, though. It isn't like the dead person is going to be texting Twitter, so there shouldn't be any updates being posted?
Slashdot and Death (Score:1, Interesting)
So what is Slashdot's policy about death?
Re:I don't know about Twitter, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not just social networks (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So serious (Score:3, Interesting)
This brings up an important point for me.... what about the individuals say in their own "digital legacy". What if my family doesn't agree with the things I say (often the case)... will they be able to posthumously censor me? Sure I am dead, and my feelings on the matter will be void... but even though something is "my account" and "I am dead" ... it was public or semi-public. It was between me and a section of the world.... my next of kin may be given control over the account but, my words belong to me and the people that I broadcast them to, there is an element of cultural record there that goes beyond my families grief.
Perhaps there should be an option for a "will" of sorts.
I would like to be able to set the "upon my death, close off new posts, but keep my old ones available" option.
Maybe allow me to select a new theme or a digital epitaph.... or just a "final post".
-Steve
Re:Not just social networks (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This might be a little uncomfortable... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I don't know about Twitter, but.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Facebook once recommended that I poke one of my dead friends. I chuckled quietly to myself and said "I don't think it will help."
Re:Poor grieving relatives... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So serious (Score:3, Interesting)
Were the ones who died from 'old age' not old? How else could it have been a surprise?
My friend Ralph was 86 when he died, and that was a surprise to everyone. Of course, old Ralph was banging hookers right up to the end.
My maternal grandfather sat down and waited to die when they retired him. It took him anothr quarter of a century to do so.
My paternal grandmother lived a hundred years, and even her death was a surprise (she fell down in the nursing home and broke her hip).