8 ms·

I think I'm pretty conflicted about this. On one hand, in this particular case it makes sense for the parents to get closure and find out if their daughter was

by akuji1993 8y ago

I think I'm pretty conflicted about this. On one hand, in this particular case it makes sense for the parents to get closure and find out if their daughter was suicidal. On the other hand, it's their daughter's privacy. She surely wrote messages to people that she didn't want to share with her parents. And there might also be messages on this account that the parents don't want to find. People with psychological problems can write pretty dark stuff and she might also have talked about her parents in those messages. I'm not sure the parents will only get the closure they want, they might also dig up stuff, they later will wish they hadn't found. So in the end, I'm not sure I agree with the judges decision. I think I share information with my parents the way I want to and definitely share other information with my friends in a group and 1on1 in messages. And I'm also sure I don't want my parents or another party not participating in some of those message groups to ever read that content.

windows_tips 8y ago
Why do you think she "surely wrote messages to people that she didn't want to share with her parents"? Seems like a pretty big assumption. >On the other hand, it's their daughter's privacy. No, the daughter is dead, according to the title.
- 1_800_UNICORN 8y ago
  It's not as clear cut as you're making it sound, there are a wide variety of opinions about how much a person's right to privacy extends beyond their death.
  - windows_tips 8y ago
    After a person dies, they don't exist. It is counterfactual to posit that they have 'rights'.
    - nkrisc 8y ago
      Rights exist only so far as they are granted. If we, as a society, choose to grants rights to the dead then the dead shall have rights. Right are a completely arbitrary construction of organized society so it's strange to suggest there are any absolute rules that govern 'rights.'
      - thomasfedb 8y ago
        ihsw2: there are well documented records of societies that cut the beating hearts out of children in ritual sacrifice, built towers or of skulls, etc. It's not a dichotomy between absolutism and nilism - there are happy middle grounds.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        ihsw2 8y ago
        Those uncivilized societies were rightfully left to the dustbin of history -- they embody the nihilism I am referring to.
        nkrisc 8y ago
        But they had their rules too. Are you suggesting their rules were somehow "wrong"? Funny how the societies left to the dustbin of history are never the "right" ones. It's almost as if the survivors are the ones who choose who was wrong.
        ameister14 8y ago
        Yes, their rules were wrong. The survivors don't have to choose who was wrong - the wrong ones don't survive. It's like when a people revolt against their government. This is wrong to do, unless they win; then it was always correct.
        thomasfedb 8y ago
    - detaro 8y ago
      It's also counter to many legal systems to say that they generally do not have rights.
    - thomasfedb 8y ago
      And yet we still extend certain dignities to their body and possessions. The deceased are treated by society in a way that suggests that they are not simply inanimate objects owned by their descendants - at least not for our practical day-to-day, non-philosophical purposes.
  - 627467 8y ago
    There may be different opinions but legal and customs shows that (in most jurisdictions), unless the deceased has made legal arrangements otherwise, their property is inherit by next of kin, including letters, diaries, etc. Why would content on Facebook be any different?
    - michaelt 8y ago
      Because in the modern age, electronic messages are partly like letters or diaries (which would be passed on to next of kin) and partly like phone calls or in-person conversations (which would not be passed on to next of kin).
      - bloak 8y ago
        That's very succinct and I agree. It does make me wonder, however, about the case of a psychiatrist or psychoanalyst who keeps paper notes on what his private patients have spoken about, and then dies suddenly in an accident together with his immediate family, so his next of kin and heir turns out to be a distant cousin, who happens to be an irresponsible teenage drug addict, say. Could anything be done to block the transfer of those paper notes in a case like that? Perhaps a self-employed psychiatrist ought to have appointed a law firm as their executor and left instructions that patient notes should be destroyed rather than transfered to the next of kin, but if they'd forgotten to do that?
        1_800_UNICORN 8y ago
        Doctor-patient privilege applies even after death, and while I couldn't easily find anything online, my assumption is that there's a process in place to handle scenarios like this so that patient data doesn't end up in unauthorized hands.
        bloak 8y ago
        I've not heard of "doctor-patient privilege". Is that a US thing? I was thinking of a private practitioner of complementary medicine, who might not be officially qualified or officially registered or officially anything at all, at least in England, where professions are not usually regulated. I'm fairly certain privacy would nevertheless be expected... I've just asked someone who knows a bit more about English law than me. Apparently there's a common-law tort of breach of confidence, which would probably prevent an heir from revealing what's in the (pseudo)therapist's notes and might allow someone to get an injunction to stop the papers from being inherited in the first place. Interestingly, data protection probably wouldn't have much to do with this hypothetical case, nor with the hypothetical case in which a random person finds a box of confidential notes/letters in a hedge.
  - xg15 8y ago
    Yes, there are also a wide variety of opinions on climate change.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    A famous example is Anne Frank, and how her father treated her diary, privacy and controversial content. It’s not at all straight forward.
- stef25 8y ago
  The dead still deserve privacy
  - optimuspaul 8y ago
    Do they really? I don't think the dead have any expectations at all let alone the expectation of privacy. But also, she was a minor and therefore no real privacy rights with respect to her parents.
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      Why are they buried with clothes on, often in a literal black box? Their possessions are generally controlled by an executor, privately. The dead expect, again literally, their will to be followed.
      - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
        Of course the dead expect nothing. But the living expect that their wills will be respected after they are gone. To preserve confidence, we must (make a show of) respect the dead.
    - stef25 8y ago
      One would hope that whatever we leave behind when we die gets treated with some dignity.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  It can be helpful to change your frame of reference regarding rights, contracts, etc. of people who are deceased to not try to imagine that it is the dead person who has a right or status in the present (they do not) but the living person who had a status regarding the future before they died (they did). That future is now our present. The anticipation of that right being fulfilled can inform your actions as a living person - you might, for example, have a long-term goal (while you're alive, obviously, dead people don't have goals) and set up a trust to accomplish that goal after you die. It can also inform you what may be or not be private after your death, so if you don't want family to read secrets you share with friends then don't put them on Facebook.
  - akuji1993 8y ago
    I know what you're trying to get at, but I really don't think any person works this way. It's not just about Facebook. If parents or relatives own everything I write in online form, I cannot write anything online if I don't want them to read it in case I die. I can also not write it down in a diary since they will own that too. So really the only way I can safely share my secrets is in speech to friends. Some people cannot meet with friends, I myself have friends I have never seen in real life. So should I just not talk about my secrets at all then? Possibly making my life worse because of it.
- akuji1993 8y ago
  So you share everything you share with your trusted friends with your parents? You don't have any conversation online that you would not want to share with your parents? I think that's a pretty big assumption.
Tomte 8y ago
Her diary and received letters would be owned and accessible by her parents, as the court pointed out. Why should her Facebook account be treated differently?
- will_brown 8y ago
  Because Zuckerburg structured it that way so FB owns the account and content. Imagine a world where children don’t buy diaries and journals but some unscrupulous corporation gives them to children for free...now go ahead and write all your personal secrets in there and the corporation will own the rights to those secrets and use them to sell to other unscrupulous corporations to decide if the children are a good fit for their product advertising. If it sounds far fetheched it’s not, if it sounds deeply disturbing it is...not only because it is real and happening, but because everyday Facebook (and other tech companies) are entering into contracts with minors, which these kings of data know or should know are illegal contracts to begin with (in the US minors can not enter into contracts unless necessary)
  - basch 8y ago
    >FB owns the account and content. FB does not own content you post, you grant them a distribution license. You still own the copyright to your own original work.
    - will_brown 8y ago
      Well minors can’t enter into contracts to grant FB distribution rights, therefore, those contracts are void as a matter of law.
      - basch 8y ago
        thus ... FB does NOT own the content, regardless. does that mean a minor can sue fb for distributing their content?
  - Tomte 8y ago
    You‘d need a legal reason for the contract between user and Facebook to be terminated. The heir enters the contractual relationship in the decedent‘s stead, with all privileges and obligations. At least in Germany.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
It's consistent with former practice with letters and such, that unless one makes arrangements to the contrary that the family/next of kin inherit private letters, writings, and effects.
- akuji1993 8y ago
  And that's fine, by law, but I'm thinking, I would also not like my parents reading my diary if I might have stuff in there I specifically don't want them to read (kinda the purpose of a diary in a way). So not sure, what point this makes, other than "Yeah but they can see other stuff I didn't want to share with them too"
  - lakisy 8y ago
    Then create a will/trust that specifically mentions that your diary should be shredded or given to a friend of yours that you trust but NOT the parents. This is happening all the time.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    My point was that this isn't a a Facebook/web issue, they are following the offline analogue. However, Facebook could easily add an "instructions after death" section .. in fact IIRC they did.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
MaxBarraclough 8y ago
I believe some legal systems consider privacy to be a non-issue once someone has died. That thinking seems implicit in the judge's mention of the way diaries are handled after death. Also, the age of deceased may mean it's treated differently. From the article: > the parents had a right to know who their child, a minor, had spoken to online

windows_tips 8y ago

Why do you think she "surely wrote messages to people that she didn't want to share with her parents"? Seems like a pretty big assumption. >On the other hand, it's their daughter's privacy. No, the daughter is dead, according to the title.

1_800_UNICORN 8y ago
It's not as clear cut as you're making it sound, there are a wide variety of opinions about how much a person's right to privacy extends beyond their death.
- windows_tips 8y ago
  After a person dies, they don't exist. It is counterfactual to posit that they have 'rights'.
  - nkrisc 8y ago
    Rights exist only so far as they are granted. If we, as a society, choose to grants rights to the dead then the dead shall have rights. Right are a completely arbitrary construction of organized society so it's strange to suggest there are any absolute rules that govern 'rights.'
    - thomasfedb 8y ago
      ihsw2: there are well documented records of societies that cut the beating hearts out of children in ritual sacrifice, built towers or of skulls, etc. It's not a dichotomy between absolutism and nilism - there are happy middle grounds.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - ihsw2 8y ago
        Those uncivilized societies were rightfully left to the dustbin of history -- they embody the nihilism I am referring to.
        nkrisc 8y ago
        But they had their rules too. Are you suggesting their rules were somehow "wrong"? Funny how the societies left to the dustbin of history are never the "right" ones. It's almost as if the survivors are the ones who choose who was wrong.
        ameister14 8y ago
        Yes, their rules were wrong. The survivors don't have to choose who was wrong - the wrong ones don't survive. It's like when a people revolt against their government. This is wrong to do, unless they win; then it was always correct.
        thomasfedb 8y ago
  - detaro 8y ago
    It's also counter to many legal systems to say that they generally do not have rights.
  - thomasfedb 8y ago
    And yet we still extend certain dignities to their body and possessions. The deceased are treated by society in a way that suggests that they are not simply inanimate objects owned by their descendants - at least not for our practical day-to-day, non-philosophical purposes.
- 627467 8y ago
  There may be different opinions but legal and customs shows that (in most jurisdictions), unless the deceased has made legal arrangements otherwise, their property is inherit by next of kin, including letters, diaries, etc. Why would content on Facebook be any different?
  - michaelt 8y ago
    Because in the modern age, electronic messages are partly like letters or diaries (which would be passed on to next of kin) and partly like phone calls or in-person conversations (which would not be passed on to next of kin).
    - bloak 8y ago
      That's very succinct and I agree. It does make me wonder, however, about the case of a psychiatrist or psychoanalyst who keeps paper notes on what his private patients have spoken about, and then dies suddenly in an accident together with his immediate family, so his next of kin and heir turns out to be a distant cousin, who happens to be an irresponsible teenage drug addict, say. Could anything be done to block the transfer of those paper notes in a case like that? Perhaps a self-employed psychiatrist ought to have appointed a law firm as their executor and left instructions that patient notes should be destroyed rather than transfered to the next of kin, but if they'd forgotten to do that?
      - 1_800_UNICORN 8y ago
        Doctor-patient privilege applies even after death, and while I couldn't easily find anything online, my assumption is that there's a process in place to handle scenarios like this so that patient data doesn't end up in unauthorized hands.
        bloak 8y ago
        I've not heard of "doctor-patient privilege". Is that a US thing? I was thinking of a private practitioner of complementary medicine, who might not be officially qualified or officially registered or officially anything at all, at least in England, where professions are not usually regulated. I'm fairly certain privacy would nevertheless be expected... I've just asked someone who knows a bit more about English law than me. Apparently there's a common-law tort of breach of confidence, which would probably prevent an heir from revealing what's in the (pseudo)therapist's notes and might allow someone to get an injunction to stop the papers from being inherited in the first place. Interestingly, data protection probably wouldn't have much to do with this hypothetical case, nor with the hypothetical case in which a random person finds a box of confidential notes/letters in a hedge.
- xg15 8y ago
  Yes, there are also a wide variety of opinions on climate change.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  A famous example is Anne Frank, and how her father treated her diary, privacy and controversial content. It’s not at all straight forward.
stef25 8y ago
The dead still deserve privacy
- optimuspaul 8y ago
  Do they really? I don't think the dead have any expectations at all let alone the expectation of privacy. But also, she was a minor and therefore no real privacy rights with respect to her parents.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    Why are they buried with clothes on, often in a literal black box? Their possessions are generally controlled by an executor, privately. The dead expect, again literally, their will to be followed.
    - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
      Of course the dead expect nothing. But the living expect that their wills will be respected after they are gone. To preserve confidence, we must (make a show of) respect the dead.
  - stef25 8y ago
    One would hope that whatever we leave behind when we die gets treated with some dignity.
LeifCarrotson 8y ago
It can be helpful to change your frame of reference regarding rights, contracts, etc. of people who are deceased to not try to imagine that it is the dead person who has a right or status in the present (they do not) but the living person who had a status regarding the future before they died (they did). That future is now our present. The anticipation of that right being fulfilled can inform your actions as a living person - you might, for example, have a long-term goal (while you're alive, obviously, dead people don't have goals) and set up a trust to accomplish that goal after you die. It can also inform you what may be or not be private after your death, so if you don't want family to read secrets you share with friends then don't put them on Facebook.
- akuji1993 8y ago
  I know what you're trying to get at, but I really don't think any person works this way. It's not just about Facebook. If parents or relatives own everything I write in online form, I cannot write anything online if I don't want them to read it in case I die. I can also not write it down in a diary since they will own that too. So really the only way I can safely share my secrets is in speech to friends. Some people cannot meet with friends, I myself have friends I have never seen in real life. So should I just not talk about my secrets at all then? Possibly making my life worse because of it.
akuji1993 8y ago
So you share everything you share with your trusted friends with your parents? You don't have any conversation online that you would not want to share with your parents? I think that's a pretty big assumption.

Tomte 8y ago

Her diary and received letters would be owned and accessible by her parents, as the court pointed out. Why should her Facebook account be treated differently?

will_brown 8y ago
Because Zuckerburg structured it that way so FB owns the account and content. Imagine a world where children don’t buy diaries and journals but some unscrupulous corporation gives them to children for free...now go ahead and write all your personal secrets in there and the corporation will own the rights to those secrets and use them to sell to other unscrupulous corporations to decide if the children are a good fit for their product advertising. If it sounds far fetheched it’s not, if it sounds deeply disturbing it is...not only because it is real and happening, but because everyday Facebook (and other tech companies) are entering into contracts with minors, which these kings of data know or should know are illegal contracts to begin with (in the US minors can not enter into contracts unless necessary)
- basch 8y ago
  >FB owns the account and content. FB does not own content you post, you grant them a distribution license. You still own the copyright to your own original work.
  - will_brown 8y ago
    Well minors can’t enter into contracts to grant FB distribution rights, therefore, those contracts are void as a matter of law.
    - basch 8y ago
      thus ... FB does NOT own the content, regardless. does that mean a minor can sue fb for distributing their content?
- Tomte 8y ago
  You‘d need a legal reason for the contract between user and Facebook to be terminated. The heir enters the contractual relationship in the decedent‘s stead, with all privileges and obligations. At least in Germany.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

It's consistent with former practice with letters and such, that unless one makes arrangements to the contrary that the family/next of kin inherit private letters, writings, and effects.

akuji1993 8y ago
And that's fine, by law, but I'm thinking, I would also not like my parents reading my diary if I might have stuff in there I specifically don't want them to read (kinda the purpose of a diary in a way). So not sure, what point this makes, other than "Yeah but they can see other stuff I didn't want to share with them too"
- lakisy 8y ago
  Then create a will/trust that specifically mentions that your diary should be shredded or given to a friend of yours that you trust but NOT the parents. This is happening all the time.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  My point was that this isn't a a Facebook/web issue, they are following the offline analogue. However, Facebook could easily add an "instructions after death" section .. in fact IIRC they did.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

MaxBarraclough 8y ago

I believe some legal systems consider privacy to be a non-issue once someone has died. That thinking seems implicit in the judge's mention of the way diaries are handled after death. Also, the age of deceased may mean it's treated differently. From the article: > the parents had a right to know who their child, a minor, had spoken to online