10 ms·

Facebook ordered to explain deleted profile

221 points by mikece 8y ago

chris_wot 8y ago
The more I see this sort of thing, the more I'm heartened that individuals are fighting back against Facebook.
- crysin 8y ago
  I don't necessarily thing Facebook was in the wrong here. Sure maybe somebody made that request to delete the profile against the family wishes but Facebook doxing someone also isn't very acceptable.
  - TillE 8y ago
    Not everything is "doxxing". In this case somebody made a request to Facebook under their own name, and there's no clear reason why they should be entitled to anonymity.
  - SolarNet 8y ago
    It's a court ordering it, they have the ability to require those sorts of things, it isn't doxxing someone if that person committed fraud.
    - crysin 8y ago
      I'm not against the court order. I read the parent's comment as though Facebook was in the wrong for not giving the name to the family before the court order.
      - abugheratwork 8y ago
        Fair. You also said you're not sure Facebook was wrong, and made reference to doxing. Let's see if we can clear up those points. Providing the identity (or some approximation) of this person, to the family, is not the same as releasing his home address on 4chan. The term "dox" does not apply. (It might apply if Facebook blindly obeyed the request to restore the page, and it turns out the page has personal information on someone who doesn't want it there. Technically the information was already public, and actually listed in the same place, so I still wouldn't use the term "dox".) I wouldn't expect them to unquestioningly restore the page upon request, but refusing to talk to someone who says their dead family member's profile was taken down by mistake is shitty behavior. Legal, maybe, but I wouldn't go so far as "not wrong". It's pretty wrong. Right?
  - jnbiche 8y ago
    Sorry, but if you're not family it next-of-kin, and you requested for Facebook to delete someone's profile, you should be identified to their family, and the profile restored.
    - crysin 8y ago
      What if you have power of attorney? Even if you were family, Facebook should not be help responsible for having to provide you with a name. The person who made the request has a right to their privacy and if Facebook acted in good-faith (which is questionable, I know) and validated the person making the request had the right to do so then I don't see any issue with Facebook's actions so far.
      - barkingcat 8y ago
        That's what the court order is about - determining whether Facebook acted in good faith, or whether there was a process for determining power of attorney. You even said that whole point was questionable - enough of a question to have a court legally compel Facebook to answer these questions. I don't see any issues with the court case pressing forward to get some answers, do you?
      - jnbiche 8y ago
        OK, next-of-kin and/or power of attorney, I should have added. Yes, I agree. I'm sure the court would, as well. But not some random person, fan, or acquaintance, as it appears in this case.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - notahacker 8y ago
      Even assuming their action was purely malicious (and not, say, an extended family member or friend or even fan of the band that was a bit surprised to see a still active profile for someone they were well aware was no longer around and thought they were fixing things), it's a weird world where Facebook has some sort of moral duty to disclose their identity to people apparently obsessed with pursuing them. If the profile can't be restored, that sounds like a separate policy issue with Facebook defaulting to permanently deleting rather than simply hiding profiles in these circumstances.
  - ItsMe000001 8y ago
    You missed the story. It was not about whether Facebook was allowed to delete the profile - it was about giving information to family members of the guy who died. What causes outrage from companies such as Google or (here) FB is not what hey do - but that it is impossible for normal people to get any information about anything! Your Youtube video was deleted - why? No response. My dead partners data disappeared - why? No response. No response to anything. This IS outrageous! Not responding to reasonable requests - and that has nothing to do with "legal" - is one of the worst ways of humans to interact with one another. Try it at home. Their behavior of ignoring you - and again, this has nothing whatsoever to do with what is "legal" - is what gets to people. Psychologically that's just really, really bad, the worst way to treat someone. Which raises the issue to another level: How arrogant as well as stupid are this mega-companies that they think they can do that, that there will be no long-term repercussions? This can't go on forever, people don't accept that, so wouldn't it make business sense to treat your "data-providers" (if not customers) just a bit better? How mighty do they already think they are that they don't have to answer very reasonable questions of people impacted by things they do? Nobody says they can't do it, we just want to TALK! Give me a human, not a bot response! What makes it especially bad is that the requests are tiny! They could be handled easily (yes yes - needs actual humans, i.e. "expensive", oh the horror for those mega-companies who don't know what to do with all their money - but it's easy).
    - 394549 8y ago
      > but that it is impossible for normal people to get any information about anything! .... Psychologically that's just really, really bad, the worst way to treat someone. Which raises the issue to another level: How arrogant as well as stupid are this mega-companies that they think they can do that This problem has its origins in the big users-as-products companies wanting to totally eliminate their user support costs, but it's going to get worse. With all the hype around "machine learning," soon no one, not even insiders, may know why your stuff was deleted or your account banned, because it was all delegated to an inscrutable "AI" system that acts but can't expose it's "reasoning."
    - dominotw 8y ago
      > This IS outrageous! I know we are beating a dead horse here. But why are people who are not customers expecting customer service. You do get customer service from google if you are paying customer on their gsuite products. That seems reasonable to me.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jlarocco 8y ago
    Kind of stupid to call this "doxing". It's not like they're requesting his SSN, addresses, and banking details get posted all over the web.
- onemoresoop 8y ago
  "We want Facebook to say exactly what their process is when they receive such a request - behind that profile was a human being and there are lots of people affected, a circle of friends who love that person." Seems like a legitimate request to facebook. Having transparent policies is a must imho
  - HumanHater 8y ago
    Did ever look how spam filtering or search results ranking algorithms work? They work exactly because companies keep their policies secret. Transparent policies would get abused instantly. Facebook processes might change every month to react on actions of billion users. What good disclosing it could ever make? You could see examples of abuse of Facebook policy in other comments here.
RankingMember 8y ago
I'm guessing they're checking some sort of database for recently-deceased automatically. I don't see why it'd trigger an automatic deletion rather than setting the account to some sort of inactive status, though. Edit: I'm wrong, it has to be specifically requested. I wonder how they determine whether the requester is privileged.
- mrbill 8y ago
  Nope. You have to specifically request that an account be "memorialized", otherwise it stays there just like they've not logged in. I had to do it with my wife's when she passed away.
  - mrbill 8y ago
    And "memorialization" just makes it so that the account can't post, log in, etc - but other people can still post to that account's "wall" - "we miss you" messages, etc.
- mrbill 8y ago
  I had to provide a picture of the death certificate and a link to an obit (IIRC, it's been nine years).
sievebrain 8y ago
GDPR request over some embarrassing information, perhaps? Facebook probably can't win here. Presumably they have a policy that compels deletion in some cases and they don't want to argue about individual cases
- bencollier49 8y ago
  I don't think dead people can make GDPR erasure requests. No idea about the legalities involved if an executor or heir tries it. My bet would be on a fake profile report.
- emerongi 8y ago
  This happened over a year ago already, before GDPR was enforced.
- jlarocco 8y ago
  Maybe try reading the article? The person died in 2016 and the profile delete was 6 months later - long before GDPR took effect.
- ghostly_s 8y ago
  "Don't want to argue about individual cases" is a business model decision that companies like Facebook make. We need to stop accepting this as a reasonable position.
throwbacktictac 8y ago
If they figure out who did it then let me know. I'd pay to get my old profile deleted.
XalvinX 8y ago
To Facebook, we are all just so much data. They just don't care. Who doesn't have a personal story or two about Facebook's indifference by now? Just...Delete Facebook. It is time.
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  Corporations are people only when it matters to them.
- smacktoward 8y ago
  It doesn't matter if you delete Facebook, they will just maintain a "shadow profile" on you anyway. (See https://spideroak.com/articles/facebook-shadow-profiles-a-profile-of-you-that-you-never-created/ https://spideroak.com/articles/facebook-shadow-profiles-a-pr..., https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/11/facebook-shadow-profiles-hearing-lujan-zuckerberg/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/11/facebook-shadow-profiles-h..., https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-profiles-zuckerberg-congress-data-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-...) We flatter ourselves that just deleting the app will be enough to stop Facebook from tracking us. Their appetite for our data is much too voracious for that.
  - andrepd 8y ago
    Doesn't GDPR require them to really delete?
    - eurticket 8y ago
      Feel like it's a disgusting game of scratch our backs and we'll scratch yours with the data they both hold - spy on our people, we'll spy on yours.
    - d4l3k 8y ago
      If you look at the answers Facebook provided to the US Senate they say: "When the person visiting a website featuring Facebook’s tools is not a registered Facebook user, Facebook does not have information identifying that individual, and it does not create profiles for this individual. ... We do not create profiles for non-Facebook users, nor do we use browser and app logs for non-Facebook users to show targeted ads from our advertisers to them or otherwise seek to personalize the content they see. However, we may take the opportunity to show a general ad that is unrelated to the attributes of the person or an ad encouraging the non-user to sign up for Facebook." https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/facebook-social-media-privacy-and-the-use-and-abuse-of-data https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/facebook-social-me... It's conceivable that Facebook could deanonymize users/aggregate the data they get from like buttons etc, but they claim that they don't use that data for ad targeting and it's only used for security.
rmason 8y ago
While it's not exactly the same thing but Facebook needs to tighten up their rules. I got in a squabble with someone who wanted my FB identity. Even though I didn't follow him he filled out a form online and had me declared deceased. It took me close to a week, with the intervention of a friend who worked at Facebook, to get my account back. How can someone who you don't even follow back be allowed to do something like this to someone? I had to prove that I was alive, complete with photos of me with my drivers license. But why is a complete stranger without any proof whatsoever able to have me declared dead? Facebook needs to rethink these rules. Seems to me in this case the guys widow should be the one who has final say over his account.
- alex_duf 8y ago
  I can see why the opposite might be valid, if you recently lost someone the last thing you want is argue with Facebook that yes, that loved one is indeed dead. Probably needs some better rules but that part needs to be as painless as possible
  - rmason 8y ago
    I can offer Facebook two choices to verify death if a third party alleges it. Either provide the death certificate or the name of the funeral home. If Facebook was smart they'd make it super simple for the funeral directors to provide this information directly to them. I lost my dad late last year and had to answer a number of questions for the funeral director. All the funeral director would have to do is ask if the deceased had any social media accounts and do you want me to contact them on your behalf?
    - mrsteveman1 8y ago
      > All the funeral director would have to do is ask if the deceased had any social media accounts and do you want me to contact them on your behalf? This would make a great plot for a novel, a disgruntled funeral director starts "killing" people digitally by marking various accounts permanently deactivated after death. And thanks to advances in genetic engineering, even showing up in person isn't enough to prove they're who they claim to be anymore, so they can't drive, work, buy anything, or communicate with anyone.
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
The change.org petition had 850 signatures over the year or so before the article was written - it is up to 1150 now. Side note - change.org has an interesting UX there - roughly they replay the last ten minutes of sign ups as you visit the site (so I went twice and saw the same people "sign up"). It gave me a real sense of momentum the first time I went ... had to readjust as I realised.
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
I think there is a sea chnage coming in how we (society) deal with problems that require subtly and judgement. Let's give FB the benefit of the doubt here, there were legitimate conflicting requests over this profile, with some degree of documentation. A human would have been needed to look at the case and make a decision. Let's say that human would take 6 minutes - and is a well trained professional. Full time that's about 10,000 6 minute cases per year. A room of lawyers like this is maybe 1/4 Million cases per year flat out. Facebook probably generates 1/4M edge cases a day. Automated cars will be making billions of decisions a year that affect human lives more deeply. We will have to change our rules in society - from post-hoc review as in court today to mainly decide the rules upfront - from the trolley problem in automated cars to what are the rules around deleting digital assets. We are heading for an open / closed society
reaperducer 8y ago
Maybe this is how we find out if Facebook really deletes user data, or if it just hides it.
testplzignore 8y ago
Two ideas to improve this: Transparency. If Foo dies and Bar reports them as dead, then inform all of Foo's friends about what Bar did. Foo's friends have a right to know that Foo has died and that Bar wants Foo's data deleted. In the real world, this is basic human decency. Appeal process. If X number/percent of Foo's friends say that he isn't really dead or that his profile shouldn't have been deleted, then ask all of Foo's friends what to do. Simple vote, majority wins. If someone is still unhappy with the result of this, then they can take it to the real world court system.
- ThbTs4wbXC9Qjv 8y ago
  Some people don't want all of their friends and family to be notified when they die... so while your transparency idea sounds good in THEORY, I fundamentally disagree with it. Ditto for your appeal process idea. Some people prefer to fade away in silence with dignity (from their point of view). That said, both of your ideas have merit if they are proposed to users as available OPTIONS that can be manually activated/opted into, but I would hope they never make them the default behavior. Losing someone close is hard enough without turning it into some democratic voting catastrophe. I believe the legacy contact system is far and away superior to any mess like democratic voting by social peers. It's specified by the person THEMSELVES, as it is after all their account, their life, and their identity being handled here. For those that don't specify a legacy contact, respect their privacy settings and don't auto-opt them into new features that deactivate previously set privacy settings... I'm looking at you FACEBOOK, just because you launch version 2.0.whatever of the insert-feature-here, that doesn't mean the default setting for all previous versions of that system should flip to PUBLIC "magically". Fuck Facebook.
- notahacker 8y ago
  I would not want to first hear of my friend's death via an automated Facebook notification, still less in the form of an invitation to vote on whether to honour a family member's request to remove the profile.
MikeGale 8y ago
This is what happens when you don't have many staff and your algorithms aren't nearly as good as a decent person. Facebook has no way out of this, as currently set up. Would you believe it: If you want to have others vouch for you after losing credentials, you can't pick a single person, you're forced to pick 5. If you don't want to pick 5 you can't use the facility. What kind of mind comes up with a system like that? The thing that may be bothering them is that this will reveal that they don't actually delete an account. If they got out of the way as gatekeepers, let you use your own data, and that which you're permitted to see, on your own terms it would be better. If they remain as gatekeepers they will suffer pain, potentially lethal pain.
ozim 8y ago
I kind of feel sad for person that feels like loosing someone for second time. Where "kind of" means what kind of universe person is living in where FB posts or messages mean something. I am too cynical or and too technical. Maybe totally different person who thinks while loosing someone "it is sad, but after couple weeks I accept it". So am I bad person? Or is it just clickbait article trying to get attention on Facebook bad publicity? Full disclosure, I just removed my FB account after GDPR went into effect, still have to see people crying over it.
- ams6110 8y ago
  I agree. After a reasonable period of mourning, the mentally healthy thing to do is move on. It's not good to ruminate over old letters, Facebook posts, photographs, or whatever of a dead person. OK to a keep a few things as fond mementos, but keeping and revisiting every scrap of history is unhealthy.
Maarten88 8y ago
It's not only Facebook who have this process unsufficiently secured. The process for administering real death is also not really tamperproof. There is a hilarious defcon presentation on virtually killing someone and getting a real death certificate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs Improperly reporting someone dead, or misrepresenting someone's will is something "you don't do" so the system is designed to minimize friction/pain.
karmakaze 8y ago
While reading the article, I was struck by not only the impact that Facebooks actions had, but also on how the presence of the online content changes how someone is remembered and grieved. I could see in some cases how it might range from unproductive to unhealthy--like a digital equivalent of keeping a shrine and living in denial. I don't believe that's true in this case as 6 months is no time to get to grips with such loss.
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221 points by mikece 8y ago

chris_wot 8y ago

The more I see this sort of thing, the more I'm heartened that individuals are fighting back against Facebook.

crysin 8y ago
I don't necessarily thing Facebook was in the wrong here. Sure maybe somebody made that request to delete the profile against the family wishes but Facebook doxing someone also isn't very acceptable.
- TillE 8y ago
  Not everything is "doxxing". In this case somebody made a request to Facebook under their own name, and there's no clear reason why they should be entitled to anonymity.
- SolarNet 8y ago
  It's a court ordering it, they have the ability to require those sorts of things, it isn't doxxing someone if that person committed fraud.
  - crysin 8y ago
    I'm not against the court order. I read the parent's comment as though Facebook was in the wrong for not giving the name to the family before the court order.
    - abugheratwork 8y ago
      Fair. You also said you're not sure Facebook was wrong, and made reference to doxing. Let's see if we can clear up those points. Providing the identity (or some approximation) of this person, to the family, is not the same as releasing his home address on 4chan. The term "dox" does not apply. (It might apply if Facebook blindly obeyed the request to restore the page, and it turns out the page has personal information on someone who doesn't want it there. Technically the information was already public, and actually listed in the same place, so I still wouldn't use the term "dox".) I wouldn't expect them to unquestioningly restore the page upon request, but refusing to talk to someone who says their dead family member's profile was taken down by mistake is shitty behavior. Legal, maybe, but I wouldn't go so far as "not wrong". It's pretty wrong. Right?
- jnbiche 8y ago
  Sorry, but if you're not family it next-of-kin, and you requested for Facebook to delete someone's profile, you should be identified to their family, and the profile restored.
  - crysin 8y ago
    What if you have power of attorney? Even if you were family, Facebook should not be help responsible for having to provide you with a name. The person who made the request has a right to their privacy and if Facebook acted in good-faith (which is questionable, I know) and validated the person making the request had the right to do so then I don't see any issue with Facebook's actions so far.
    - barkingcat 8y ago
      That's what the court order is about - determining whether Facebook acted in good faith, or whether there was a process for determining power of attorney. You even said that whole point was questionable - enough of a question to have a court legally compel Facebook to answer these questions. I don't see any issues with the court case pressing forward to get some answers, do you?
    - jnbiche 8y ago
      OK, next-of-kin and/or power of attorney, I should have added. Yes, I agree. I'm sure the court would, as well. But not some random person, fan, or acquaintance, as it appears in this case.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - notahacker 8y ago
    Even assuming their action was purely malicious (and not, say, an extended family member or friend or even fan of the band that was a bit surprised to see a still active profile for someone they were well aware was no longer around and thought they were fixing things), it's a weird world where Facebook has some sort of moral duty to disclose their identity to people apparently obsessed with pursuing them. If the profile can't be restored, that sounds like a separate policy issue with Facebook defaulting to permanently deleting rather than simply hiding profiles in these circumstances.
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  You missed the story. It was not about whether Facebook was allowed to delete the profile - it was about giving information to family members of the guy who died. What causes outrage from companies such as Google or (here) FB is not what hey do - but that it is impossible for normal people to get any information about anything! Your Youtube video was deleted - why? No response. My dead partners data disappeared - why? No response. No response to anything. This IS outrageous! Not responding to reasonable requests - and that has nothing to do with "legal" - is one of the worst ways of humans to interact with one another. Try it at home. Their behavior of ignoring you - and again, this has nothing whatsoever to do with what is "legal" - is what gets to people. Psychologically that's just really, really bad, the worst way to treat someone. Which raises the issue to another level: How arrogant as well as stupid are this mega-companies that they think they can do that, that there will be no long-term repercussions? This can't go on forever, people don't accept that, so wouldn't it make business sense to treat your "data-providers" (if not customers) just a bit better? How mighty do they already think they are that they don't have to answer very reasonable questions of people impacted by things they do? Nobody says they can't do it, we just want to TALK! Give me a human, not a bot response! What makes it especially bad is that the requests are tiny! They could be handled easily (yes yes - needs actual humans, i.e. "expensive", oh the horror for those mega-companies who don't know what to do with all their money - but it's easy).
  - 394549 8y ago
    > but that it is impossible for normal people to get any information about anything! .... Psychologically that's just really, really bad, the worst way to treat someone. Which raises the issue to another level: How arrogant as well as stupid are this mega-companies that they think they can do that This problem has its origins in the big users-as-products companies wanting to totally eliminate their user support costs, but it's going to get worse. With all the hype around "machine learning," soon no one, not even insiders, may know why your stuff was deleted or your account banned, because it was all delegated to an inscrutable "AI" system that acts but can't expose it's "reasoning."
  - dominotw 8y ago
    > This IS outrageous! I know we are beating a dead horse here. But why are people who are not customers expecting customer service. You do get customer service from google if you are paying customer on their gsuite products. That seems reasonable to me.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jlarocco 8y ago
  Kind of stupid to call this "doxing". It's not like they're requesting his SSN, addresses, and banking details get posted all over the web.
onemoresoop 8y ago
"We want Facebook to say exactly what their process is when they receive such a request - behind that profile was a human being and there are lots of people affected, a circle of friends who love that person." Seems like a legitimate request to facebook. Having transparent policies is a must imho
- HumanHater 8y ago
  Did ever look how spam filtering or search results ranking algorithms work? They work exactly because companies keep their policies secret. Transparent policies would get abused instantly. Facebook processes might change every month to react on actions of billion users. What good disclosing it could ever make? You could see examples of abuse of Facebook policy in other comments here.

RankingMember 8y ago

I'm guessing they're checking some sort of database for recently-deceased automatically. I don't see why it'd trigger an automatic deletion rather than setting the account to some sort of inactive status, though. Edit: I'm wrong, it has to be specifically requested. I wonder how they determine whether the requester is privileged.

mrbill 8y ago
Nope. You have to specifically request that an account be "memorialized", otherwise it stays there just like they've not logged in. I had to do it with my wife's when she passed away.
- mrbill 8y ago
  And "memorialization" just makes it so that the account can't post, log in, etc - but other people can still post to that account's "wall" - "we miss you" messages, etc.
mrbill 8y ago
I had to provide a picture of the death certificate and a link to an obit (IIRC, it's been nine years).

sievebrain 8y ago

GDPR request over some embarrassing information, perhaps? Facebook probably can't win here. Presumably they have a policy that compels deletion in some cases and they don't want to argue about individual cases

bencollier49 8y ago
I don't think dead people can make GDPR erasure requests. No idea about the legalities involved if an executor or heir tries it. My bet would be on a fake profile report.
emerongi 8y ago
This happened over a year ago already, before GDPR was enforced.
jlarocco 8y ago
Maybe try reading the article? The person died in 2016 and the profile delete was 6 months later - long before GDPR took effect.
ghostly_s 8y ago
"Don't want to argue about individual cases" is a business model decision that companies like Facebook make. We need to stop accepting this as a reasonable position.

throwbacktictac 8y ago

If they figure out who did it then let me know. I'd pay to get my old profile deleted.

XalvinX 8y ago

To Facebook, we are all just so much data. They just don't care. Who doesn't have a personal story or two about Facebook's indifference by now? Just...Delete Facebook. It is time.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago
Corporations are people only when it matters to them.
smacktoward 8y ago
It doesn't matter if you delete Facebook, they will just maintain a "shadow profile" on you anyway. (See https://spideroak.com/articles/facebook-shadow-profiles-a-profile-of-you-that-you-never-created/ https://spideroak.com/articles/facebook-shadow-profiles-a-pr..., https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/11/facebook-shadow-profiles-hearing-lujan-zuckerberg/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/11/facebook-shadow-profiles-h..., https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-profiles-zuckerberg-congress-data-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-...) We flatter ourselves that just deleting the app will be enough to stop Facebook from tracking us. Their appetite for our data is much too voracious for that.
- andrepd 8y ago
  Doesn't GDPR require them to really delete?
  - eurticket 8y ago
    Feel like it's a disgusting game of scratch our backs and we'll scratch yours with the data they both hold - spy on our people, we'll spy on yours.
  - d4l3k 8y ago
    If you look at the answers Facebook provided to the US Senate they say: "When the person visiting a website featuring Facebook’s tools is not a registered Facebook user, Facebook does not have information identifying that individual, and it does not create profiles for this individual. ... We do not create profiles for non-Facebook users, nor do we use browser and app logs for non-Facebook users to show targeted ads from our advertisers to them or otherwise seek to personalize the content they see. However, we may take the opportunity to show a general ad that is unrelated to the attributes of the person or an ad encouraging the non-user to sign up for Facebook." https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/facebook-social-media-privacy-and-the-use-and-abuse-of-data https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/facebook-social-me... It's conceivable that Facebook could deanonymize users/aggregate the data they get from like buttons etc, but they claim that they don't use that data for ad targeting and it's only used for security.

rmason 8y ago

While it's not exactly the same thing but Facebook needs to tighten up their rules. I got in a squabble with someone who wanted my FB identity. Even though I didn't follow him he filled out a form online and had me declared deceased. It took me close to a week, with the intervention of a friend who worked at Facebook, to get my account back. How can someone who you don't even follow back be allowed to do something like this to someone? I had to prove that I was alive, complete with photos of me with my drivers license. But why is a complete stranger without any proof whatsoever able to have me declared dead? Facebook needs to rethink these rules. Seems to me in this case the guys widow should be the one who has final say over his account.

alex_duf 8y ago
I can see why the opposite might be valid, if you recently lost someone the last thing you want is argue with Facebook that yes, that loved one is indeed dead. Probably needs some better rules but that part needs to be as painless as possible
- rmason 8y ago
  I can offer Facebook two choices to verify death if a third party alleges it. Either provide the death certificate or the name of the funeral home. If Facebook was smart they'd make it super simple for the funeral directors to provide this information directly to them. I lost my dad late last year and had to answer a number of questions for the funeral director. All the funeral director would have to do is ask if the deceased had any social media accounts and do you want me to contact them on your behalf?
  - mrsteveman1 8y ago
    > All the funeral director would have to do is ask if the deceased had any social media accounts and do you want me to contact them on your behalf? This would make a great plot for a novel, a disgruntled funeral director starts "killing" people digitally by marking various accounts permanently deactivated after death. And thanks to advances in genetic engineering, even showing up in person isn't enough to prove they're who they claim to be anymore, so they can't drive, work, buy anything, or communicate with anyone.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

The change.org petition had 850 signatures over the year or so before the article was written - it is up to 1150 now. Side note - change.org has an interesting UX there - roughly they replay the last ten minutes of sign ups as you visit the site (so I went twice and saw the same people "sign up"). It gave me a real sense of momentum the first time I went ... had to readjust as I realised.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

I think there is a sea chnage coming in how we (society) deal with problems that require subtly and judgement. Let's give FB the benefit of the doubt here, there were legitimate conflicting requests over this profile, with some degree of documentation. A human would have been needed to look at the case and make a decision. Let's say that human would take 6 minutes - and is a well trained professional. Full time that's about 10,000 6 minute cases per year. A room of lawyers like this is maybe 1/4 Million cases per year flat out. Facebook probably generates 1/4M edge cases a day. Automated cars will be making billions of decisions a year that affect human lives more deeply. We will have to change our rules in society - from post-hoc review as in court today to mainly decide the rules upfront - from the trolley problem in automated cars to what are the rules around deleting digital assets. We are heading for an open / closed society

reaperducer 8y ago

Maybe this is how we find out if Facebook really deletes user data, or if it just hides it.

testplzignore 8y ago

Two ideas to improve this: Transparency. If Foo dies and Bar reports them as dead, then inform all of Foo's friends about what Bar did. Foo's friends have a right to know that Foo has died and that Bar wants Foo's data deleted. In the real world, this is basic human decency. Appeal process. If X number/percent of Foo's friends say that he isn't really dead or that his profile shouldn't have been deleted, then ask all of Foo's friends what to do. Simple vote, majority wins. If someone is still unhappy with the result of this, then they can take it to the real world court system.

ThbTs4wbXC9Qjv 8y ago
Some people don't want all of their friends and family to be notified when they die... so while your transparency idea sounds good in THEORY, I fundamentally disagree with it. Ditto for your appeal process idea. Some people prefer to fade away in silence with dignity (from their point of view). That said, both of your ideas have merit if they are proposed to users as available OPTIONS that can be manually activated/opted into, but I would hope they never make them the default behavior. Losing someone close is hard enough without turning it into some democratic voting catastrophe. I believe the legacy contact system is far and away superior to any mess like democratic voting by social peers. It's specified by the person THEMSELVES, as it is after all their account, their life, and their identity being handled here. For those that don't specify a legacy contact, respect their privacy settings and don't auto-opt them into new features that deactivate previously set privacy settings... I'm looking at you FACEBOOK, just because you launch version 2.0.whatever of the insert-feature-here, that doesn't mean the default setting for all previous versions of that system should flip to PUBLIC "magically". Fuck Facebook.
notahacker 8y ago
I would not want to first hear of my friend's death via an automated Facebook notification, still less in the form of an invitation to vote on whether to honour a family member's request to remove the profile.

MikeGale 8y ago

This is what happens when you don't have many staff and your algorithms aren't nearly as good as a decent person. Facebook has no way out of this, as currently set up. Would you believe it: If you want to have others vouch for you after losing credentials, you can't pick a single person, you're forced to pick 5. If you don't want to pick 5 you can't use the facility. What kind of mind comes up with a system like that? The thing that may be bothering them is that this will reveal that they don't actually delete an account. If they got out of the way as gatekeepers, let you use your own data, and that which you're permitted to see, on your own terms it would be better. If they remain as gatekeepers they will suffer pain, potentially lethal pain.

ozim 8y ago

I kind of feel sad for person that feels like loosing someone for second time. Where "kind of" means what kind of universe person is living in where FB posts or messages mean something. I am too cynical or and too technical. Maybe totally different person who thinks while loosing someone "it is sad, but after couple weeks I accept it". So am I bad person? Or is it just clickbait article trying to get attention on Facebook bad publicity? Full disclosure, I just removed my FB account after GDPR went into effect, still have to see people crying over it.

ams6110 8y ago
I agree. After a reasonable period of mourning, the mentally healthy thing to do is move on. It's not good to ruminate over old letters, Facebook posts, photographs, or whatever of a dead person. OK to a keep a few things as fond mementos, but keeping and revisiting every scrap of history is unhealthy.

Maarten88 8y ago

It's not only Facebook who have this process unsufficiently secured. The process for administering real death is also not really tamperproof. There is a hilarious defcon presentation on virtually killing someone and getting a real death certificate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs Improperly reporting someone dead, or misrepresenting someone's will is something "you don't do" so the system is designed to minimize friction/pain.

karmakaze 8y ago

While reading the article, I was struck by not only the impact that Facebooks actions had, but also on how the presence of the online content changes how someone is remembered and grieved. I could see in some cases how it might range from unproductive to unhealthy--like a digital equivalent of keeping a shrine and living in denial. I don't believe that's true in this case as 6 months is no time to get to grips with such loss.

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