Tag Archives: Facebook

Facebook declared people prematurely dead.  Were you one of them?

mark-zuckberberg-1On Thursday, 11/11, Facebook had a bug.  It was one that managed to modify user profiles and declare those users dead.  Even Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, appeared dead on the site.

Despite being very much alive, users found their accounts switched to a “memorialized account,” reserved for the deceased, with the word “remembering” posted beside their name.

A statement reading: “We hope people who love Mark will find comfort in the things others share to remember and celebrate his life,” appeared on Mark Zuckerberg’s profile before being corrected.

Facebook provides a form to request the memorialization of accounts of the deceased. It requires documentation of a death, presumably to prevent people from triggering errant notices.  If this option is selected, their profile will continue to exist, but only as a memorial.  A logon is no longer available but people can post memorial messages to the deceased.

Many people woke up Thursday to find that their accounts had been memorialized and Facebook thought they were dead.  I imagine that could be very scary for someone who’s still alive.  The bug has now been fixed

To learn more about memorialization and what to do about other online accounts when someone dies, go to www.diesmart.com.

What has Facebook done to the accounts of deceased people?

Facebook recently announced that they have changed their rules related to memorializing the account of a deceased person.    In the past, Facebook determined who could see that memorialized page.  Now, the changed rule says that the memorialized page can be seen by the same people as were able to see the page of the living person.  In other words, the decisions made by that person will be honored after his or her death.

Once the account has been memorialized, there can be no modifications to the site.  No friends can be added or deleted, no photos can be modified and no content that was posted by the site owner can be removed.  However, if the privacy settings set up by the deceased allow this, friends may be able to share memories on the memorialized timeline.  And anyone can send private messages to the deceased person.  Why someone would want to do this, I don’t know.  However, it is now allowed.

If you wish to memorialize a loved one’s Facebook page, the place to get started is with the request for memorialization form.  You will be asked for a link to the deceased’s Facebook page.  You will also be asked your relationship to that person, his or her year of death and proof of that death, i.e. a link to an obituary or news article.

Once Facebook has reviewed and approved the submission, the page will be memorialized.

To read more about social media accounts of the deceased, go to www.diesmart.com.

Facebook – Do you remain in cyberspace forever?

If a loved one has left his or her login information – user name and password – where you can find it, there’s no problem. All you have to do is the following:

1) Open the account that you want to delete.

2) Go to Account Settings.

3) Look for the Deactivate Account button at the bottom of the page.

4) Just click on it and the account is deactivated.

Another option is to memorialize the account.  This means that certain sensitive information is removed from the account and privacy is set so only confirmed friends can see the profile or locate it in a search.  The Wall remains so these friends and family can leave posts in remembrance.  To memorialize an account, go to http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fhelp%2Fcontact.php%3Fshow_form%3Ddeceased&h=e5091bd54d848d4ca97832694b87dcd0.  This will bring up a list of Facebook FAQs; one of them says “I’d like to report a deceased user or an account that needs to be memorialized.”  Within that FAQ is a link to the correct form where you will need to enter the information requested.

Facebook says  “that in order to protect the privacy of the deceased user, we cannot provide login information for the account to anyone.”  They do claim to honor requests from close family members to close the account completely; however, we were unable to find any information on how to do so. 

Perhaps the deceased’s account will remain in cyberspace forever!

If you’d like to learn more about digital assets, check out our book “Grave Robbers…How to prevent identity theft of the deceased.”