What happens to your Facebook profile when you die? In the ever increasing world of social media, this question is more likely to be asked. Interestingly enough, since about May of 2007 Facebook has had a policy of memorializing the pages of members who have died, hiding some features like the status updates, and locking it down to prevent any hacking attempts. Confirmed friends and family members can still post to the memorialized wall and view the page, which for some people is a great way to maintain a connection.
This policy came about because back in 2007 Facebook had intended to remove the profiles of some students at Virginia Tech who had been killed. Because of online protests and a letter-writing campaign by friends and other Facebook members who heard that the pages were to be removed, the company instead decided to memorialize them.
Facebook’s official memorializing explanation from the FAQ page is:
“When a user passes away, we memorialize their account to protect their privacy. Memorializing an account removes certain sensitive information (e.g., status updates and contact information) and sets privacy so that only confirmed friends can see the profile or locate it in search. The Wall remains so that friends and family can leave posts in remembrance. Memorializing an account also prevents all login access to it.”
Alternately, you can also request that the profile be taken down completely. Either can be done by filling out this form. You will need to provide online proof, such as a link to an obituary, as well as some other details like the email address that was used for the account, birth date, etc.
The Mobile Web
While the part of me that’s getting old says, “why can’t we just do it like we did before,” the techie in me is excited. The move to mobile in use of the Internet marks a huge step toward the removal of the barriers between us and our connections to each other and information. The device itself is becoming more transparent and allowing us to interact more directly with content, in more ways, on our own terms. As a website designer and developer, I find this both a bit intimidating and a bit exhilarating. When I first started building websites, what drew me to it was the way we could take a few simple rules and build something greater than the sum of it’s parts.
Some aspects of this shift concern me – in particular the move from a more “open” Internet to one that’s walled off for the sake of security and proprietary experience. In a way it’s a return to the old days of CompuServe and AOL, where the producer of the device controlled the experience of the user. It falls to we developers to maintain the push toward stepping outside of the intended bounds of the new products and systems. Yet it’s easy to understand the drive behind this change. People are tired of spam and viruses, and a more protected environment is appealing.
Another effect this shift will have will be to make large-scale fancy website designs a bit irrelevant. (You know, the ones with all the flowing shapes and flowered patterns, with animated photos and fancy Flash.) For years now, many web designers and developers have pushed for content-based websites, where the design is more a subtle part of the whole, while the content is flexible to accommodate as many viewing/reading devices as possible. This trend will only increase, as the range of devices increases. I think this is a good thing.
If you haven’t jumped in and joined the ranks of the smart phone owners, don’t feel bad, as of the date of this posting I haven’t either. But it’s about time.