NDM Post 17

What happens to your Facebook account when you die?

The article explain the process in which a profile page of a social site like facebook has to go through to become memorialised after the announced death of a family member. Facebook has a waiting period of 6 months for one account to be processed to a memorialisation, Statistic research by Nathan Lustig show that 3,000,000 facebook users will die this year dividing up to 60.000 a month, The author write the the 6 month waiting period is unacceptable if it take that long to process one account. the article also focused on other option that the deceased's family member can take including deleting the account all together resulting in the loss of profile content including pictures ad videos etc. However to preserve them, which is a very long process, legal steps must be taken as its a privacy issue and would require a court order.

- No one is allowed to log in to the account

- You can’t change, add to or delete existing content, which includes adding or removing friends

- Automated activities, such as daily quotes or horoscopes, are stopped

- Memorialised accounts don’t appear in “public spaces” such as birthday reminders, People You May Know, or searches

- Memorialised accounts can only be accessed by the user’s confirmed friends

The process for memorialising accounts should be quicker as institutions such as facebook are very successful, it has more than enough money to update software and machines to speed up the process or even the labour, this could be increased drastically as the labour work is cheap. Although the process of memorialising the account isn't necessary it would be much easier on the family member if the stress of going through the process is more simple and straight forward.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2014/oct/30/what-happens-to-your-facebook-account-when-you-or-a-loved-one-dies