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Late last week the Consumerist wrote an article highlighting a woman who had trouble convincing Facebook to remove the profile of her deceased brother. William Bemister, the brother of Stephanie Bermister, died suddenly last November. Stephanie’s case in particular brings up several important issues regarding Facebook, it’s policy towards deceased users, and the way in which it deals with family members of the deceased.
Per Facebook’s policy, his profile was memorialized, a process by which certain private information is removed and the page is only accessible to confirmed friends through search. The problem in Stephanie’s case was that she was not yet a confirmed friend. After Stephanie sent in a request along with a copy of William’s death certificate to Facebook for removing William’s profile completely, Facebook still did not remove the profile.
Should Facebook have the right to decide what to do with a deceased member’s account despite direct and confirmed contact with a relative? At the very least, family members should be contacted for permission before Facebook begins this process.
Since the Consumerist article was initially published Facebook has agreed to remove William’s account all together, and a written response to our own inquiry indicates that Facebook will honor such requests from family members. Facebook is also clear to state that it will not give login information for the deceased account, but will remove the profile per the request of family members.
What’s still in question is the process by which Facebook determines which users are deceased, and how this is confirmed. We haven’t received any additional information from Facebook regarding this particular aspect of the process for managing the profiles of deceased members, but looking at Stephanie’s situation merely highlights the uncomfortable dynamic a social network can enduce when dealing with the topic of death.
So what should a user do if placed in Stephanie’s shoes? Be prepared to deal with a potentially arduous process with the social networks, as there could be a lot of ongoing correspondence and paperwork to deal with. It may also be a good idea to make sure you’re friends with your closest family members that also have Facebook accounts. Depending on the person and their use of social networks, it may also be a good idea to have a plan of action in place, outlining instructions to family members and loved ones in regard to what should be done with their accounts once they’ve passed away.
Great write up. I hadn’t considered these implications before. It always comes back to the question, “Who owns the information?” Just because you password-protect your user accounts doesn’t mean they’re yours, or inheritable. Disconcerting.
I hope this is a policy I will never have encounter.
I am not trying to be funny here but I am interested in knowing why this matters to family members? If I have passed away, my Facebook account may still be out there but it will be an account with no activity on it.
I am interested in hearing some legitimate reasons why a family goes through the troubles of shutting down my online account at Facebook or any other site that I was a member of.
Quite frankly, I am on so many different sites, I doubt if my family would even know where to start asking for my information to be removed from.
This seems to get right back to the whole TOS/who owns content issue that Facebook cannot seem to get right.
Chilling.
How bout allowing me to decide? I write a will when I am alive, why can’t I tell facebook what to do in the event of my death. I hope my facebook account is opened up several years after my death just like Census records are. My decedents should be allowed to learn about my life and get a sense of who I was through facebook.
I actually like the idea of my Facebook profile sticking around after I’m gone. I don’t understand why a family member would even want to pursue closing what will probably be the most comprehensive memorial a person could have.
It can be a bit tricky - my best friend died two years ago and he had a Facebook account and it is still there. In some ways it is nice to see his picture show up in my friends list and in other ways it is a painful reminder that he is no longer around. It is fine for me to feel the pain of loss when I see his smiling face - but if it was a family member or in this case - my friends son is on Facebook, and it is one’s father it would be very hard to deal with. When you see your friends face on Facebook you wonder what are they up to right now - but in the case of friends that pass - it is a sharp reminder that they are not here any longer to enjoy all the friends they have.
I think the memorial page is the best way to deal with it and it should be the family that has the final say as to if it shows up or not.
Cheers - Eric
Tricky indeed! I think the best way would be to allow me to decide what happens with my account. And if I decided not to delete, then my friends should have an option to hide my face on their friends listings.
CG: interesting what you said about open it up! Newer thought about that option, but kind of like it.
The policy is messed up. Just look at this situation: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/4657019/
Why memorialize friendships like that?
I see dead people….
I was thinking why Facebook rejected this at first. From a marketing point of view, even the “memorial” pages are going to have ads, and are going to drive some revenue, with more people looking at those ads after the person dies. Could that be the reason? And if that is the case, what type of advertisement is Facebook using?
I think facebook should have option where the account can be totally deleted like it can for example with myspace, a little while ago now I conducted a little test on facebook. Ok so one day y’know I’d just basically become totally fed up with facebook and social networking all together and so wanted to delete my account I then was fairly annoyed to find out that you only had the option to “deactivate” your account not totally delete like myspace, but then what outraged me after that was when I asked a friend to go to my profile I was shocked to see that all my information was still there and still fully accessable despite me “deactivating” the account , so in the end I ended up using my account again but rarely now as I, to be honest don’t really want to, and so for deceased members I think that it is uttery oporling that this much trouble has to happen for a family relative to gain control of the deceased account.
I am quite certain I will never have to deal with this issue.
My sixteen year old son, Kaleb, died in a car accident in October 2008. I didn’t request his page be removed. However, I did request that facebook let me become his friend so I could see and read the postings of his friends. In someway this gives me comfort to know that people still miss Kaleb. It’s hard to explain how I feel. Sadly FB would not agree to let me be a friend. They memorialized his profile. Why couldn’t FB just let me, his mom, be a friend??? What would it hurt???
Pretty much have the same situation…..
My brother passed away and I of course can not get into his page. I do NOT want to delete or deactivate it; I want to leave it up for any tributes people would like to offer and open it up to anyone that would like to put a not on his Wall. I have searched and search through the help pages but to no avail am able to locate assistance. Help pages do not offer anyway for comments, which is funny since there are many comments. So, any suggestions I am open…
My son Steffun Kong passed recently,July 26th 2009, & I have been trying to find a way to have his profile deleted for his birthday is coming up next Sunday September 27th 2009 and I know that his friends will be sending in birthday wishes etc to his profile, i know they mean well, but….and he and I have a lot of friends in common, this is not easy for me and I would appreciate if Facebook can please delete the profile so that no one can add anything to it, he lived in Trinidad West Indies, Diego Martin to be exact, his date of birth was September 27th 1988, all you have to do is look on his profile and you will see that he passed, with all the comments etc. that I am his mother I can prove if you need I can forward a copy of his birth paper, passport, national id card, and death certificate to you if you tell me where to send it to, i can email it, along with a copy of anything of mine that would prove that I am his Mother. Unlike one of the comments above, it would only hurt more with persons sending in comments and best wishes and happy birthday and that kinda thing, I just want it to be over. Please delete the account. Thanks
Accounts should time out after nine months of no login. As the facebook community gets larger it probably makes sense to automatically delete accounts. As well, a family member can always create a new group for memorial purposes.
That’s probably the safest and easiest legal way of dealing with it.
My friend passed away ten months ago and we continue to write on her wall whenever we miss her. I know it’s probably not the easiest way to deal with it, but I don’t ever want to lose this communication with my friend, it makes me feel like I’m still connected to her in some way.
My son Robby died tragically on September 5, 2009. Fortunately, his cousin knew his password so we have been able to monitor it (neither parent had FB accounts). We feel very fortunate that FB is available for us to keep in contact with his friends and read the things they post daily on his page.
I am dealing with a family whose daughter suicided and the comments on facebook are very distressing to the family. to try to delete this profile is proving just another major battle for this very traumatised family and is causing such untold grief. To find the information to have this profile deleted has proven to be a battle of major proportion and is just disgraceful.
Yes, it is very distressing to loose a family member in the first place. Almost a month before my Son passed away,I sent him a friend request on Facebook. Well,it was never answered,untill two months after he died. His death was suspicious,and I had contacted the police. They only had a recording,so I left a message that I needed to talk to someone. They never got back to me. Then one day,while I was on Facebook,I sat there in shock as I looked at a message,with my Son’s picture. It said my Son’s name,then it said “He’s engaged”. This was two months after he was shot. I sent a message back “Who ever is doing this,Stop…now!” Well, guess what? The next day,the picture and message disappeared. then I received a message from his girlfriend,asking me how I was doing. I was appalled,and wondered what is going on. Should I call the police ?
I lost my friend on October 19 and I was wondering what would happen to his facebook account. For reasons that seem trivial now he and I were not friends on facebook at the time of his death, so I imagine I cannot see his page anymore if I looked it up. Personally I don’t want to see it, it would hurt too much, but I don’t see a problem with his other friends accessing his page, just like I wouldn’t mind people accessing my page when I die.
However, I do think we should be given an option when we sign up of whether or not we would like to have our page still up in the event of our death. I feel like that would solve this problem right away. If we do want it to stay up then keep it up and memorialize it. If we don’t than delete it completely.
i too want my deceased son off facebook as its so distressing when it suggests i add him as a friend but still looking for a concrete way of doing this
I lost my Dad a few weeks ago. We wanted to leave his account up for awhile so we could get messages to friends that we may not have known to call. Last night there was a message on my screen to reconnect with Dad. It was sad to see. I expect FB to send me birthday reminders any day now. I can’t imagine if people were leaving negetive comments. There is so much to work through when greiving a family member this is just another one of those painful decisions that has to be made.
I have now lost two friends that were on my Facebook friends list. I feel guilty if I think of deleting them as my friend, but it is upsetting to see their name on all lists to send gifts to, to write on their wall, etc. If I do delete them as a friend, I will keep getting prompts to reconnect with them, and that is upsetting too. Not sure what the correct answer to this would be. Just my two cents worth.