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As one of the older folks on HN, I can tell you that death in the age of facebook is strange in that even when they are gone there's still a "there-ness" to the
by noonespecial 13y ago
As one of the older folks on HN, I can tell you that death in the age of facebook is strange in that even when they are gone there's still a "there-ness" to them thanks to left over accounts. Its almost like at any moment, a tweet will pop up or an update to a wall... Perhaps that's the 21st century version of seeing ghosts.
- stmchn 13y agoIt's very unsettling. I'm still in college but I've had a couple friends who have passed. I just don't have the heart to unfriend their accounts. Once in a while, I'll be browsing Facebook and their account will pop up. Some other friend will comment on their page or something like that, and for a brief instant, you think they're still alive somehow (which makes no sense of course) before you realize it's just someone interacting with their page.
- LanceH 13y agoAnd the post-death messages that they like Ikea, or Chipotle, which are spooky, weird and tacky, all at once.
- stmchn 13y agoIt really gives "famous last words" a whole new meaning since all your tweets and Facebook statuses are forever immortalized. It makes me wonder what seemingly mundane thing will be the last thing people see from me on social media and will in turn be the first thing people see on my page when they find out I'm dead. It reminds me of Cory Monteith's (from Glee) recent passing. His last tweets were, "what the crap is Sharknado" "oh. IT'S A SHARK TORNADO." Just seems so odd to be remembered that way.
- Nicholas_C 13y agoVery. Before my best friend passed, that morning his final tweet was "Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die." He died in a drunk driving accident in which he was the passenger several hours later that afternoon.
- philwelch 13y agoEspecially since he (presumably) didn't actually die in a sharknado.
- gohrt 13y agoI'm sure that people who knew him (either personally or by enjoying his acting work) remember him differently. People who just followed him on Twitter, meh.
- ksrm 13y agohttps://twitter.com/sully_2003 https://twitter.com/sully_2003 :(
- lmm 13y agoDeath rarely waits for a convenient moment. http://xkcd.com/791/ http://xkcd.com/791/
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- duskwuff 13y agoCoping with the death of friends who you've got as "friends" on an online service is… complicated, too. "Unfriending" them feels callous, but keeping them around has its issues too as services happily remind you that their birthday is coming up, or count up the months since you've seen them online.
- hkarthik 13y agoA co-worker of mine from 10 years ago recently lost her battle with cancer. I hadn't talked to her in nearly decade, but we would Like each other's posts on FB occasionally. Thankfully on the Monday after she passed, one of her family members posted about her passing on her wall and many of her friends (myself included) shared condolences. Had it not been for FB and those messages, I may never have known.
- bandy 13y agoHad FB not decided to randomly show you that post, you still wouldn't have known about it.
- eddieroger 13y agoYou can actually have a Facebook "friend" marked as deceased (in quotes, because it's actually pretty stringent on how to make this happen, and you have to be family), which prevents them from showing up places like feeds and likes and search. I had to have my grandmother marked as deceased, and it was one of the most difficult parts of the posthumous clean up tasks.
- pbhjpbhj 13y agoThere's a notification system where you can send a link to a newspaper obituary (as a FB Friend) and they apparently use that to memorialise the persons page. A friend's page/wall is live it just says "lived" instead of "lives". I can't recall any spam related to his page since I notified FB so I think they must lock it down too.
- DanBC 13y ago> and it was one of the most difficult parts of the posthumous clean up tasks. I have dead people in my phone contact list, because deleting them just feels weird.
- eddieroger 13y agoMy Grandma is still in my phone for that reason. I also couldn't wipe her laptop, so I just pulled the drive and replaced it. It's weird, the things that make death real.
- jotm 13y agoI wonder if there's a way to set up a "I'm dead" message that would post when you're dead. I dunno, maybe have an app check the SSN/NID status to be 100% sure, then post a prerecorded message...
- namenotrequired 13y agoThey can give you a special Deceased account: https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143 https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143
- sah2ed 13y agoFrom the link you posted: > Anyone can send private messages to the deceased person Not sure what Facebook intends by offering this since no one will be able to log in to the account to read them.
- EvanKelly 13y agoSometimes it's nice to have a place to actually send things. It's like writing a letter to someone you never actually intend to send. I think in the case of Facebook, it's probably nice to actually push that "send" button on the message.
- zeckalpha 13y agoSome people are marked dead who aren't really, too.
- EvanKelly 13y agoUnfortunately no one can log into a memorialized page, even with the valid credentials. It was very difficult to get information off facebook (pictures, etc.) once the page was memorialized after the death of a loved one.
- crntaylor 13y ago
- nostromo 13y agoA story from a friend: His friend died and all of his accounts went silent along with some grieving notes. Then, a few months later, the deceased's account was compromised by a spammer. Posts from a spammer posing as a dead friend is about the worst kind of spam I can imagine.
- ics 13y agoI've seen this happen before as well. I wonder if it would help to have a mechanism that basically removes the user's ability to log in but preserves their data.
- krallin 13y agoFacebook actually has an option to "memorialize" accounts: https://www.facebook.com/help/150486848354038 https://www.facebook.com/help/150486848354038
- jonas_b 13y agoWhat does memorialize mean? My father died some years ago and his account is still there, so I'm curious.
- evolve2k 13y agoThe most important thing it does is remove them from suggest a friend requests list which can be very disturbing to receive. 'John wants to connect with you', Oh that's cool, wtf?! John's dead?!
- lambada 13y agoAccording to [0] >Depending on the privacy settings of the deceased person's account, friends can share memories on the memorialized timeline I'd love to know which Privacy Settings control this ability, it's interesting they don't specifically call out the relevant option. [0] https://www.facebook.com/help/www/103897939701143?rdrhc https://www.facebook.com/help/www/103897939701143?rdrhc
- GuiA 13y agoThere is a subfield of HCI entirely dedicated to thinking about the problem of death in the 21st century. Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanatosensitivity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanatosensitivity The seminal paper: http://www.chi2009.org/altchisystem/submissions/submission_mmassimi_208_1232961565.pdf http://www.chi2009.org/altchisystem/submissions/submission_m...
- InTheSwiss 13y agoWhen my girlfriend died I could not bring myself to remove her from my friends list. She is still there. Her beautiful smile looks at me nearly every day. Some days I am glad to see that little profile picture of hers and others it is painful. Her family could have the account closed I guess but I think they feel the same as me and closing it is like deleting a little part of what we have left of her :(
- S_A_P 13y agoThis is probably one of the most profoundly sad things I've read in a while. I don't know you or your girlfriend but I truly feel sorry for your loss. I am fortunate to (so far) have not experienced the deaths of many loved ones. I could only imagine the range of emotions I would feel, especially with their virtual presence persisting after they pass.
- InTheSwiss 13y agoIt has been almost 3 years now (December) so I have had time to "move on"[0]. I have a wonderful new girlfriend and life is good. I still miss Sima almost every day but people are right when they say time helps mend. It never takes away the feeling of loss but it does ease the pain (emotional pain is far greater than any physical pain I have ever experienced). Facebook still reminds me when it is her birthday (although I never forget anyway) and in a way I find it quite comforting to have an external reminder of her. It makes me feel while she has gone she is still here in some strange little ways. Nobody truly dies on the internet. I would also like to say thank you to all those who have said such kind things in your replies. [0] I hate that expression but it seems to be the only way to phrase it
- conanbatt 13y agoI got the birthday notification one my most beloved teacher, and he passed away more than a year ago. It is a bitter sweet moment indeed. Im kind of glad i got the notification really.
- silencio 13y ago
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- kalhank 13y agoA client I worked for had his CISO pass away unexpectedly at a relatively young age due to a heart attack. My client then recounted how he received a LinkedIn update a few days following his death, and the first thing my client thought was "talk about remote access!"...he has an interesting sense of humor.
- jlgaddis 13y agoHeh, I bet the latency sucks, though!
- tpurves 13y agoI wrote this blog piece back in in 2006 when the social media trend was just starting to emerge about what to with the social profiles of the deceased. As well with my own experiences as a software designer. What happens when your user is dead? are the kinds of special use cases we often fail to consider when rushing out the minimum viable product. http://www.thomaspurves.com/2006/05/10/the-dead-sender-problem/ http://www.thomaspurves.com/2006/05/10/the-dead-sender-probl...
- Nicholas_C 13y agoMy best friend since 5th grade recently passed a few months ago. People are still tagging him in pictures and whatnot. Occasionally people will tag him in photos I haven't seen yet and for a brief second I think he's still alive. Very distressing.
- statictype 13y agoYeah, and it's a very weird and sad feeling to delete someone's entry from your address book because they passed away.
- noufalibrahim 13y agoI don't know if you're familiar with the "Black Mirror" series. They're very hard hitting commentaries on our modern societies. One of the episodes (the first one of the second season) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Black_Mirror_episodes#Series_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Black_Mirror_episodes#S... is about such a situation where a person is "brought back to life" using the "image" they've left on social media sites as well as on private digital archives (personal photos etc.). It's not too far from reality which makes it all the more disturbing. I highly recommend it.
- morazow 13y agoOne of my friends died couple of years ago, sometimes people would like or comment to his photos on facebook and it appears on my timeline, and it reminds all the great times we spent. We exchanged passwords with my best friend on these social sites, he is being funny and joking guy asked me to update his status something like "hell is hot" if he dies first.