Slashdot Mirror
Can Twitter and Facebook Deal With Their Dead?
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."
You know what, before I die I will create a program that posts random predefined messages to my Facebook account after I have died. One of the morning messages could be "having a morning coffee with satan" and late night message could be "man do I appreciate cold beer right now".
You only die once. The least you can do is have some fun creeping out people about it.
But in order to achieve this, the grieving relatives must send Twitter their full name and contact details, an explanation of their relationship to the deceased, the user name of the Twitter account and links to a public obituary that provides proof of death.
That's ridiculous; Netcraft confirmation should suffice.
.
Trolling is a art,
Who in their right mind pokes a dead person?
"One and a half million Facebook users die each year."
That's about 3 times as many annual deaths as tobacco users!
Where's the Bureau of Alcohol, Twitter, and Facebook when you need them?
Yeah... Looking forward to the new groups. "Need 250 more people to poke my recently deceased grandma!"
I didn't realise using Facebook and Twitter was such a risky endeavour.
That's really surreal. I can only imagine what kind of Facebook profile question answers you pick for a dead guy.
"Relationship Status: It's Complicated."
I crave immortality.
Have gnu, will travel.
Web Crawler: Bring out yer dead.
[a Robots.txt responds to the request with a packet]
Robots.txt: Here's one.
Web Crawler: That'll be nine bytes.
Dead Person's Webpage: I'm not dead.
Web Crawler: What?
Robots.txt: Nothing. There's your nine bytes.
Dead Person's Webpage: I'm not dead.
Web Crawler: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Robots.txt: Yes he is.
Dead Person's Webpage: I'm not.
Web Crawler: He isn't.
Robots.txt: Well, he will be soon, he's got bitrot.
Dead Person's Webpage: I'm getting better. Look, new content from friends and family.
Robots.txt: No you're not, you'll be stale content in a moment. No more page requests.
Web Crawler: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations. Robots.txt, you should take him off your Disallow list.
Dead Person's Webpage: I don't want to go to the 404.
Robots.txt: Oh, don't be such a baby.
Web Crawler: I can't take him.
Dead Person's Webpage: I feel fine.
Robots.txt: Oh, do me a favor.
Web Crawler: I can't.
Robots.txt: Well, can you 302 temporarily redirect him for a couple of days? He won't be long.
Web Crawler: I promised I'd be at the Facebooks'. They've lost nine today.
Robots.txt: Well, when's your next round?
Web Crawler: 20100821 04:32:55 UTC.
Dead Person's Webpage: I think I'll go for a retweet.
Robots.txt: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
Dead Person's Webpage: Status Update: I feel happy. Status Update: I feel happy.
[Web Crawler spiders up and down the fibre optic pipe furtively, then silences the Webpage with a whack of his delisting]
Robots.txt: Ah, thank you very much.
Web Crawler: Not at all. See you on 20100821 04:32:55 UTC.
Robots.txt: Right.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Unless you're getting spam from someone who's logging into the dead person's account to help their own Farmville game or whatnot, you shouldn't even be getting anything that would remind you it's still active.
NickJones08 is pushing up daisies in Farmville!
Play Farmville now and help him out!
Sent an e-mail to the account holder's registered e-mail address with a link to an "I'm not dead" page,
Dear Facebook,
I'm not dead, I was just pining for the fjords.
Sincerely,
Percival Q. Parrot, Esq.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Nah wireless is more convenient. As long as you don't hold the phone in a death-grip.