How to memorialize friends who have passed away on Facebook

Over on the Facebook blog, head of security Max Kelly has just explained what to do to memorialize the profile of someone who has passed away:

We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it's important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialized. ...When an account is memorialized, we also set privacy so that only confirmed friends can see the profile or locate it in search. We try to protect the deceased's privacy by removing sensitive information such as contact information and status updates. Memorializing an account also prevents anyone from logging into it in the future, while still enabling friends and family to leave posts on the profile Wall in remembrance. If you have a friend or a family member whose profile should be memorialized, please contact us, so their memory can properly live on among their friends on Facebook.

Memories of friends departed endure on Facebook via CNet

• [slgalt]

  I seem to remember Corey had a piece up on dealing with his digital self in his will. It was about securing info. Perhaps we need to start leaving instructions about any social networks, etc. in our wills.

• [Anonymous]

  I say …. this is nice an all… however people need to tell there loved ones & friends on facebook how they feel now! tell people you love them , how they make you feel now ….dont wate till someone dies! its so stupid!

• [Anonymous]

  how do I do to put a memorialized page in the normal way again?
  why the password is not required when memorializing someone´s page?
  how do I know who memorialized the page?

• [Nell Frizzell]

  I wrote about this on my blog a while ago, after finding out via facebook that a few people had died.

  http://thumbsforhire.co.uk/?p=1781

• [t3hmadhatter]

  I agree with limepies. It’s kinda… I dunno, just like a large corporation trying to be personal with people. It’s very creepy and feels insincere.

• [Anonymous]

  Somebody, decided to “memorialize” my husband’s FB page without asking me– all of his status updates are gone… basically everything that was “him” was stripped from the account. I feel raped. No chance to even save anything for myself or for my son. FB’s idea of “memorializing” isn’t very “memorial” if you ask me! DON’T DO IT!!! I can’t believe that they allow any random “internet friend” to make the request. My husband had a will… what was his, is mine… shouldn’t it have been my call to decide to memorialize?

  • [Anonymous]

    DID YOU EVERGET RESOLUTION FROM FACEBOOK?? i agree same happend to me my husband died; i have 2 year old son; they stripped the profile – the things that made my husband himself; rite njow i can’ t even see the wall htey locked the account so personal messages friends sent to my son the month following my husbands death i can no longer access;
    Until you have someone such as spouse or child die and you are stripped of some of the most personal moments and words — MY HUSBANDS OWN WORDS!!! – without so much as bein gasked – you have no right to an opinion; I have greived all over again….
    I wil do everything I can to bring awareness to how awful this is for those who have lost loved one

  • [Anonymous]

    Thank you so much for sharing. I’m so sorry for your loss. You just stopped me from memorializing my friend’s page. Have you attempted to contact Facebook to recover what they stole? I hope you are able to recapture what you wanted from his page.

    RE: #34 • 10:08 PM, Dec 13 • Anon

    “Somebody, decided to “memorialize” my husband’s FB page without asking me– all of his status updates are gone… basically everything that was “him” was stripped from the account. I feel raped. No chance to even save anything for myself or for my son. FB’s idea of “memorializing” isn’t very “memorial” if you ask me! DON’T DO IT!!! I can’t believe that they allow any random “internet friend” to make the request. My husband had a will… what was his, is mine… shouldn’t it have been my call to decide to memorialize?”

• [JB NicholsonOwens]

  Can one die on Facebook? Is Facebook death a thing?

  Perhaps the headline should instead read “How to use Facebook to memorialize friends who have passed away” instead of “How to memorialize friends who have passed away on Facebook”.

  • [Talia]

    Surely you must be aware of the staggeringly high body count from Mafia Wars.

    I was killed twice on FB just the other day.

• [semiotix]

  I have EVERY intention of setting up some kind of auto-posting script with YEARS’ worth of status updates for the amusement and horror of my former friends.

  If Facebook puts the kibosh on it, I will give them such a haunting it’ll make Poltergeist look like a “Casper” rerun.

  • [netsharc]

    LOL @ semiotix’ script, perhaps you can connect it to Twitter too

    - Oh crap, I’m dead!
    - Woo, I’m floating, floating.
    - The Pearly Gates are actually quite nice!
    - Holy crap, they let me in, sweet!
    - Woo going out with my man Jesus!
    - Hey @Jesus, sorry you got into trouble with your old man last night.

    etc etc :p

• [Anonymous]

  i am trying to figure out how to memorialize my brothers facebook if someone could let me know thanks

• [rtclick]

  I have been TRYING to memorialize my sons page.Having a heck of time doing it.He passed in May,2001.If there is ANYONE there that can help,PLEASE do.I really dont how to send “URL”.I have tried,no deal.And all i have is his death cert.for proof other than the famaily and friends on Facebook.Shouldnt that be proof enough?

• [Anonymous]

  My friend read this and memorialized me but i’m not dead!!!
  Theres no way to contact facebook and i can’t find any way to undo it!

• [whisper dog]

  My first thought was about how this is a great way to lock out accounts of people who aren’t dead, and will certainly be used for that purpose enough that FB will have to torpedo the idea.

• [nerdycellist]

  One of my friends recently passed away. Her page was turned into “[Dead Friend] Memorial”, but it still pops up on my right hand column, with captions like “Catch up with [Dead Friend] Memorial!” It’s eerie. For some reason I feel weird about un-friending her page, but if that keeps happening I may just do it.

• [Anonymous]

  It’s great to see that Facebook are finally starting to get their act together, by formalizing what has already existed in user generated tribute for ages. I am a Mres in Design student and for the past year and a half i have been researching the topic of death in the digital world. I have looked at what role social networks can play in the bereavement process, systems which would allow people to create a will for their digital information and the place of digital heirlooms. Please feel free to cheak out my vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/album/102363) or blog (http://digitaldeathandbeyond.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html) if you have any further interest in the topic.

• [octopod]

  also what’s the etiquette for deleting contacts who have died ?

• [Xopher]

  I’m going to see if this has been done for my friend David. I keep seeing his page pop up in my list.

• [Anonymous]

  Funny, i’ve been reported dead already by this stupid fiasco – Facebook hasnt said anything yet, and they’ve already disabled my profile without a word.

  It’s stuck in Memorial state.
  I’m sure if you look up Jill Haldeman (Otago as network) it wont let you see me.

• [Heartfruit]

  Not a bad idea on FBs part, but I fear how it will be abused. Imagine going to log in to find out you’ve been reported dead.

  • [Anonymous]

    That’s why theres the little box for PROOF OF DEATH.

  • [Anonymous]

    The form includes a field that requires proof of death.

  • [earbox]

    Did you miss the field requesting a link for proof of death?

• [kmoser]

  I wonder how many people have to request an account be memorialized before Facebook will take action.

  Step 1: Become Facebook friends with [celeb of your choice]. Step 2: Request that Facebook memorialize their account.

• [Anonymous]

  http://www.mydeathspace.com does it better…

• [Anonymous]

  limepies/t3hmadhatter: I agree that it may seem a little weird, but think about it. Most people (at least of my generation or younger; anyone under about 25) don’t have traditional photo albums or anything like that. I have probably thousands of pictures that I’ve taken on trips to Europe, family vacations, road trips with friends, etc, etc. And I’m not even one of those people who brings a camera to every single party. It’s just years worth of normal photo accumulation. Now, there are three places where I have those photos stored: my main computer, my external hard drive, and Facebook. If I were to die tomorrow, and someone wanted to look back at memories that they had of me, where do you think they’d look? If done right–which it sounds like Facebook is trying to do, even if they still need to work out the kinks–it can be a real memorial, just like a grave marker or a eulogy or a photo album or home videos. Odd as it may seem to older people and even some of the younger generation, social networking websites are how people communicate and stay in touch and share their lives and memories with each other. It’s only natural that they would wind up being a part of someone’s death as well.

• [adamgraham]

  An ad for colon cleansing was one way someone was memorialized on FB recently:

  http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2009/10/13/ns-breimer-facebook.html

• [Tdawwg]

  Snarky writing prof. comment here: you might revise to “How to memorialize on Facebook friends who have passed away.” One would presume that passing away on Facebook (i.e., by the means of, or using Facebook to record) would be its own sufficient memorialization. :D

• [Scary_UK]

  ‘Proof of Death – an obituary or news article’

  What about those of us who don’t die in news-worthy circumstances and aren’t famous to warrant an obituary?

• [Daemon]

  Hmm. I believe it’s not that hard to make up a fake obit for somebody…

• [dbarak]

  Based on how Facebook has been misbehaving lately, I have a feeling it might be terminally ill.

• [redstarr]

  This is an awesome idea. I don’t use facebook, so I don’t know exactly how it works, but on myspace it would be a nice feature. Like sometimes friends of mine who’ve passed away turn up in the “people you may know” section, where myspace recommends people you may know based on them being friends with other people on your friends list. It’s really unsettling for me.

  I delete people who are deceased from my friends list, partly because I’m no longer going to be able to contact them through myspace and I like to limit my list to current contacts that I’m really going to interact with, but also partly because it’s a bit upsetting to see the constant reminder of them being on my list and being gone. Yes, they’re gone and I’m not ever going to forget them, but I don’t need to see their page every time I scroll through my friends list. It’s a real downer when I’m doing fun stuff like sending out invitations to parties or sending happy holiday greetings or funny videos to see my dead friends’ accounts.

  Giving the dead people a different memorial account setting would be the perfect compromise. It would allow people who are comforted by visiting the page to still be able to see it, but minimize people who don’t wish to be reminded all the time being exposed to it.

  Plus, it would keep anyone from being able to do anything malicious with someone’s account after they pass. It would make it so that someone authorized like a spouse or family member could set the account as memorial then no hackers or applications or mischief makers could use the account to keep sending communications with the deceased person’s network. I know on myspace that some apps can sort of communicate with very little input from the person. I’d hate to recieve invitions to join in games and such from someone who’s passed away. I’d hate to get comments and messages from spam hackers that appeared to come from a dead loved one’s account. And sick twisted mean people could definitely do some genuinely cruel stuff if they hacked into someone’s account who had passed away. Memorial settings could really help prevent a lot of sadness.

• [Patrick Dodds]

  “I delete people who are deceased from my friends list, partly because I’m no longer going to be able to contact them through myspace and I like to limit my list to current contacts that I’m really going to interact with…..”

  Why of course….

• [Anonymous]

  I do not like this removing of stuff from the profile. I still want to see their status updates. I hope nobody does this for me. My status updates make my profile a bit more alive!

• [Anonymous]

  Just a warning for people about FB’s policy. Once a profile has been memorialized, it becomes locked-out for anyone who tries to log-in.

  Recently, an acquaintance passed away, and some well-meaning individual decided to memorialize the profile. Unfortunately, they did so without asking the family. As a result, some videos belonging to the deceased, which were tagged private, have been lost forever. The family went to great lengths to try to get the videos, which contained some original music, but were unable to do so.

  • [Cefeida]

    Wait, so it’s not the next of kin’s decision? Anyone can do it? That’s really stupid.

• [limepies]

  personally, it seems creepy as all hell. in the event of my death, i would want my facebook, email, livejournal, EVERYTHING to just be wiped. i’m sorry if it offends, but it seems a bit crass to memorialize someone via FACEBOOK.

  • [Anonymous]

    Well, that will probably be a good idea in your case. But, there are people who have passed who have a bunch of friends that like to remember the deceased person…especially since he was so special. You have to be a very, very special person for family and friends to request that facebook and myspace be kept on and running.

• [Anonymous]

  Great technology (social networks) with monkeys running them!

• [Anonymous]

  Suggestion:
  Here is another way to deal with deceased friends on facebook, upfront:
  http://apps.facebook.com/if_i_die/