Comments on: What to do about your dead Facebook friends http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/10/27/what-to-do-about-your-dead-facebook-friends/ Human Animals at the Crossroads of Culture, Science, Religion and Media Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:04:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 By: Erika Price http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/10/27/what-to-do-about-your-dead-facebook-friends/comment-page-1/#comment-54656 Erika Price Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:47:56 +0000 http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=9884#comment-54656 This reminds me of the niche Myspace site, Mydeathspace.com. Myspace is essentially obsolete at this point, of course, and Facebook has not adopted a very solid or respectable solution for its dead user pages. Earlier this year, The Consumerist noted that <a href="http://consumerist.com/5157481/facebook-wont-let-you-remove-dead-relatives-page-per-policy" rel="nofollow"> Facebook was refusing to delete the pages of the dead</a>. Dead user's pages have been a problem for both family and Facebook for some time, then. I personally find the idea of a "memorial page" a little crass, but preferable to Facebook's current do-nothing policy. Maybe there's nothing strange or wrong with incorporating dead-centered memorial pages into Facebook, though my initial reaction to the idea is discomfort. Since its inception, Facebook has slowly expanded its breadth from college students, to alumni, to younger kids, to everyone- including original users' parents and grandparents. Why not expand the barrier even wider, allowing even involuntary Facebook membership from beyond-the-grave? It seems a little perverse, but maybe inevitable. This reminds me of the niche Myspace site, Mydeathspace.com. Myspace is essentially obsolete at this point, of course, and Facebook has not adopted a very solid or respectable solution for its dead user pages. Earlier this year, The Consumerist noted that Facebook was refusing to delete the pages of the dead. Dead user’s pages have been a problem for both family and Facebook for some time, then. I personally find the idea of a “memorial page” a little crass, but preferable to Facebook’s current do-nothing policy.

Maybe there’s nothing strange or wrong with incorporating dead-centered memorial pages into Facebook, though my initial reaction to the idea is discomfort. Since its inception, Facebook has slowly expanded its breadth from college students, to alumni, to younger kids, to everyone- including original users’ parents and grandparents. Why not expand the barrier even wider, allowing even involuntary Facebook membership from beyond-the-grave? It seems a little perverse, but maybe inevitable.

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