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."
As a funeral director I can make a few observations.
Deleting the accounts is a bad idea. Many of these accounts serve as online memorials to people's loved ones. Even if the person is no longer around to post or update their profiles, loved ones may take comfort in the fact that the deceased is still in their social network. Many of the people using social networks are still young people and most of their deaths are unexpected (accidents, suicides, homicides) and many of the survivors are still dealing with the reality of the situation. I think many of these companies need to be sensitive to the needs of the grieving and in an age where user loyalty is everything they should hold onto these accounts in the interests of of being sensitive to the grieving who make up part of their still alive user base.
If you ever want access to the content of somebody who died then you need to have the executor of the estate forward a page from the will outlining who the executor of the will is and a copy of the funeral director's proof of death. If you try and wait for official copies of the government's proof of death you could be looking at a 2 year wait. Also forward the name of the funeral home who handled the arrangements in case they have any questions. If you are not the executor or the person who made the arrangements then you need to get in touch with them and get their permission. It doesn't matter if you were the deceased's favorite brother the law in most places favors the executor.
Now all this being said, I need to caution loved ones that in the case of an unexpected death (like a suicide), trying to obtain access to people's social network data may be part of looking for answers as to why it happened. As somebody who has read a fair share of suicide notes and heard a lot of stories about circumstances surrounding sudden deaths I can tell you that sometimes are better off not knowing. You may learn secrets about your loved one you really did not want to know and it may cause damage to your opinion of them. A lot of private communications contains information we would not want to share with our loved ones and sometimes its best if loved ones don't know it (even after a death). So before you go charging into trying to go through all this information ask yourself if you are really prepared for what you might find. Did you really want to know that your loving married father was being unfaithful or your baby sister you adored had a serious debt and meth problem?