FB'ers Who Have Passed Away

I read an article this evening by the New York Times describing the difficult time Facebook is having identifying (and verifying) users who have died. With roughly 500 million users, it happens. When Facebook was in it's infancy and consisted primarily of young college students, the death rate was lower and more manageable, but often very tragic. At first, the social networking site simply deleted the profiles, but following the 2007 Virginia Tech tragedy, users begged the administration to keep profiles online to help them grieve and memorialize their loved ones.

Now, however, older adults are flocking to Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family. But with the growing number of older users, Facebook is having a difficult time identifying members who have passed away. Currently the site has a form users can fill out to inform the admins of a user's passing requiring a only a link to a newspaper article or online obituary. This is far from prank-proof and has been exploited by at least one "friend" willing to create a convincing website. The company has also explored using a computer algorithm to search user's walls for multiple occurrences of phrases like "rest in peace" and "I'll miss you" but this also has it's obvious shortcomings.

Another challenge is what to do with the deceased's profile. Having these "ghosts" pop up as a friend suggestion or reconnect opportunity is a tad creepy. The current memorialization process removes those actions. Other Facebook users can write on the wall but can't be added as friends so friends and family who join after the user has been marked as deceased are stuck with the privacy settings that user set up for people who aren't friends. So, for example, if the deceased user marked his wall, photos, videos, or information as "Friends Only", new users won't be able to see them.

Until now, most of the above information was in the New York Times article. You're welcome to read it for yourself, of course, but it requires you sign up for their site. Membership is free, but I thought I'd save you the hassle.

Facebook, if your listening, I have a few suggestions:

First, you could require the funeral home's name, address and phone number, and the funeral details in the death report form. Check the phone book to make sure they are legit, then call them to verify the person is deceased. Perhaps include the deceased's FB profile for them to look up. Perhaps you could request (or require) some other info from the users, such as middle name, parents' names--some specific detail that would distinguish one John Q. Public from another.

Second, how about appointing a guardian, such as a family member or friend, to a memorialized profile? That would allow the deceased to approve friends and family after they've died, upload photos, and whatever else needs done. It could be very similar to the current system for pages.

I'm no expert, but those are a few suggestions that come to mind. Take them for what they're worth. I have a few people I've lost who are still on Facebook and it has been very helpful to have their profiles still up; thank you Facebook for taking steps to keep them available.