Does it stay in cyberspace forever? How can it be cancelled? What needs to be done? It seems to me it would be very strage to have people continually posting comments to the site of someone who is deceased.

how in the hell you think about this???

i don't know about facebook, but this one guy commited suicide, and he had programmed his website to keep updating and publishing new posts for a long time after his death. it's a really interesting site, www.akumaprime.com

As far as I know I think Facebook might just keep it up and treat it as an abandoned but not deactivated account ("maybe they'll come back"). I don't think they'll delete it unless there is some problem like abusive content or someone hacking into the account and abusing its use, given that members can't even delete their own accounts - we can only "deactivate" them which will put them sort of into stasis or hibernation of sorts with all the information stored until reactivation, if what I remember reading from the Help on this is right.

Kind of going on tangent:
If I remember right deviantART doesn't allow accounts to closed or deleted, said something about preserving it in their history or something and not allowing anyone else to create a new account with that username, but that's dA; on Facebook we use e-mail logins.

Back to Facebook I've come across a few things on the boards that touch on this topic. There was a member who wanted to write to Facebook about a deceased relative, they were afraid that Facebook would delete the relative's account and did not want that to happen, they wanted the decision to rest in the hands of the decease's... children or close family I think; sort of leaving the account up as an "in memory of" page. There was also another member who wanted their boyfriend's page closed because he had passed away. So there are differing opinions on this, some may want to keep the page "active"... and some may not. There was also a much earlier post I think of a friend a deceased who... I can't remember if they wanted the profile taken down or just the ability to remove people from the "People You May Know" section and have them stay off their list on that.

My opinion? I think there should be a choice: between keeping it up with clear mention or some indication of some sort that the person is deceased and that the profile is only kept "active" as sort of an "in memory of" profile, and taking it down or deactivating it. Who should make the choice and how to prove that someone has passed away and that they would have wished it taken down or kept up in this manner or whatever... I don't know other than maybe writing letters to Facebook explaining what had happened and one's wishes or the wishes of the family/friends of the deceased are with regards to the profile. It seems kind of morbid to add a link to everyone's profile asking people/visitors: "is this user alive?" ^^;

I guess I don't find it so strange to have people posting comments to the site of someone who is deceased, but maybe that is in part because I have seen pages set up in memory of someone (often/always/sometimes? with guestbooks) and I have even seen a gallery on an art community changed from an active member's to a gallery kept open in memory of - and a lot of people commented before and after her death; after her passing away a lot of the comments had a slight tone of somberness or regret but mostly with that there was still a sense of soft... gladness that the gallery was kept open, I think, plus perhaps often a note of "she will be missed"

My uncle died and he had facebook, its so scary going on his account.

A mad thought. You could be sending mails to someone who is already dead, and you wouldnt know unless someone notified you. Of course if its a friend, then you would find out sooner or later through other people, but not in all cases. You might not have mutual friends who could inform you.
Thats kind of dodgy, but i guess as time goes on and we experience it for ourselves it ceases to become an issue...
good question Minna...bet quite a few people have thought of that, but didnt want to ask.
What is also crazy is that it is impossible to delete an account once it has been opened...whats that all about then?

It's scary?

I can't remember if I mentioned it in my reply here -- few people have asked about this in different places and I know I've replied to at least one or two aside from this one, only I forgot what I said where and I'm not sure if anyone has gotten an "official" answer from Facebook yet -- but I think / my suggestion for this situation is or would be that if the profile is kept "active" there should be a marker of some sort to indicate that the member has since passed away and that the profile is kept up in memoriam, to set it apart from other active profiles and clear up confusion. The posting ability and use of features for the account as well perhaps maybe should be restricted -- it would make sense to me at least.

Because facebook cannot be deleted maybe it would be good to put it into good use and kept as open only to friends that can be trusted with important information, has anyone thought of that?. But still I think it should be allowed to be completely deletable.

Hi Minna,

The answer is "Not Much".

Another post above stated Facebook accounts can't be deleted. Of course they can if the owners want that to be possible. It's a matter of policy for them to decide if accounts are to be kept or not, not a software restriction.

The only scary thing about sending messages to a deceased person's account is if you get a reply in which case you should ask gently "Where are you writing from?" and "What's it like there?"

Regardless though of policy there will be a time when the owners need to decide about archiving unused accounts etc as space becomes an issue. Assuming FB lasts that long of course.

The ways of google are amazing i guess.
By typing "what happens when someone on facebook dies" i got to this post.
I just what I need.

In the weekend one my classmates died suddenly and she was only 22. Everyone in the class has her as a friend on facebook. We are dicussing forth and back about what to do about her and facebook.
First of all we are in doubt whether to remove her as a friend. It seems too cold to remove her right away, but too Morbid to have a dead person as your friend. We sort of decided that we remove after her funeral, this marking some sort of ending.

Also we are concerned about the things that other members mentioned. Someone who does not have mutual friend to notify them of her death.

One more thing is that one person wrote on that person wall, sort of a "nice knowing you" post. People are divided over whether its a sick or nice gesture.

Sociologically I think its a really interesting thing this thing with facebook and dead people. Its like a virtual grave one can visit to be reminded of that person. However, this has a big problem. If you still want to be able to see their full profile you have to keep them as your friend, which is just bad style.

As there are alternative styled pages for politicians, companies and products, why not a type for dead people as well? The problem is as always that there is noone to make these changes.

I guess I will write my facebook password and login in my will and instruct my next of kin to login and change my status to "Dead".

Unless someone knows the password, the account stays active.
My friend died in February this year, and his account is still open.

Is that for definite? My dad died recently and me and my sister are trying to delete his account but we don't know his password. We've emailed facebook 3 times but they are not replying. Did you have the same problems?

www.mydeathspace.com

These are actual accts of dead people..

WTF Jon?

wow ..what a Q?
i never thought of it,huh
no command,i will pass

I can think of three questions here:

1. What currently does happen?
2. What SHOULD happen if Facebook wants to maximize the customer experience?
3. Legally, who has the rights to the account and the intellectual property therein? And to decide if it should become a memorial account, closed, or whatever.

For #1, I thought Facebook required you to have an active email account somewhere to have a Facebook account, so if the dead person's email got canceled so would the Facebook account. But then we would have to ask the same question about gmail accounts and hotmail accounts. What happens to those when you die?

For #2, personally I like the idea of turning the account into a memorial. That could be a side venture for Facebook with death related widgets for sending flowers or condolences etc.

#3 is one of those situations that illustrates how the law is always several steps behind technology. If you don't put in your will who gets your car, there are legal precedents to decide. I guess they would have to use the most similar precedents unless/until Congress passes a specific law.

Question 2 sounded odd to me, then I read your answer/response to it and understood what you meant. Could be your wording or it could just have easily been me there; I Am unusually tired these days, moreso than usual. [Edit: I realize in my tired skimming of your post, I missed the second sentence of your third question.]

However, I think I stick by my stand, there should or I would like there to be a choice and not a strict rule -- some people might Want to keep it "active" and some might not, the problem however as is already pointed out (you pointed this out yourself) is: who chooses? And... how do you (whomever is trying / saying or claiming to have the right or some sway in the matter) prove that to Facebook?

*snip* er, nevermind, I wrote about a paragraph on your "side venture" note then realized that they wouldn't have to add the application/s at all even; so long as they didn't block it I think such gifts like flowers and etc. may be able to be posted to their Wall via the publisher if it needs be accepted to show in the application's box. ^^;

Regarding #1 though, I think hotmail and yahoo accounts have a certain duration of inactivity before they are considered dead and closed + deleted. I'm not sure about gmail actually come to think of it and I might be wrong about yahoo but I think that is the case; I guess I'm presuming about hotmail... I Might have had a hotmail account once but I do believe that was long ago. Does Facebook check e-mail addresses regularly though? I know some places/sites do but I'm not certain about Facebook.

my friend Nate died 2.5 years ago and i want to add him so I can see his profile and pictures. I was in a play with him.

My friend Sam died in November. He was only 16, and he's still getting hundreds of posts not only on his actual page, but he has a tribute page as well. Perhaps it's because we're all quite young, but we update him basically about what's happening, it's like when he actually died, we sent him letters.
Probably one day, everyone will just stop posting but even though it may sound morbid, it's really nice to send a message to him, even if he isn't there, cause he went really suddenly, no one got to say goodbye or thank you and then occasionally something will happen that reminds you of him and it's just nice to read his profile and remember him.
I was wondering what will happen to his Facebook, I think it would be such a pity if it disappeared because so many people have commented and I was also wondering about his msn. We all still see his name at the top of our contact lists (cause of alphabetically, he was top) and I don't want to remove him yet. Will someone eventually get his msn address? :S
xx

I can't remove him from my friends lists, either on msn or facebook, it just seems awful. I think we're all still in the stage where we'll mention him and be; oh. and then it's a shock again, because it's so weird to think he's not here. And it stuns you every time.
x

I'm sorry for your loss, and I hope Facebook doesn't decide to close the accounts and remove profile pages of people we have lost, or at the very least not without Adequate notice.
Maybe if they could just be converted into memorial Pages, or optional memorial Pages, with Inboxes, that would be better.

Views still conflict on this though, I think; some would rather the account be kept "active" and others think it shouldn't and some think that there should be a choice but if the deceased didn't specify before passing on (tangent, should there be an optional Account setting for something like that?) then who decides?

If a friend of yours has passed away, and his/her account remains on Facebook, their account will be preserved in their memory. To have their profile memorialized, it has to be reported to do so.

Here is the form:
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased

Hello Eric - saw your post on this. We have a friend that just died tragically and her mom wants to deactivate her facebook page. What is the difference between having the profile memorialized vs. deactivated?

Thanks for any information you can share.

Mitzi

When a Facebook profile is officially memorialized, just a few aspects are changed. Basic things -- such as contact information, status updates, etc. -- are removed. In addition, the individual's profile is closed except to those with whom he/she had friended. Their page cannot be found through search results and no new friend requests are accepted. However, their Wall remains available for friends and family to leave messages, or just share memories of earlier days.

On the other hand, a deactivated Facebook profile is totally removed from the site. Any aspect relating to the person is forgotten, and no one will see his/her page.

Personally, leaving the profile in a memorialized state is something many people consider. The only people who view it are just the friends he/she had in real life, and because they are still able to leave messages, the profile becomes a place of comfort for those left behind. Sometimes even writing out one's feelings can make a world of difference.

Link to form for Facebook memorialization:
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased

And of course, somewhere out there, you know they're smiling every time they see their friends have left a notification for them to read.

I found a great blog post that explains why leaving a profile open is so beneficial. And while the author's friend didn't have their profile "memorialized", it shows just why keeping it available is such a great thing.

http://joelcorriveau.com/2008/04/what-happens-to-your-facebook-when-you-die/

Hope this helps.

I'd say to Facebook, do the same as many other web sites: when the account has not been accessed by the account holder since such a lenght of time, I'd say one year for Facebook, the account is automatically deactivated or suspended. That would settle the matter of deceased Facebook account holders. I guess that a dead account holder's wall could be a great place for a golden book to sign, but I think deactivating or suspending the account is the better option. If someone wishes, one could create an invite only group to create a memorial of sorts for people to sign.
Now, there would be also the matter of Facebook groups that have only one adm and that one adm dies. What happens then? Would you say that the group is deactivated after one year? If it's a very popular group, I presume that more than one adm would be in charge. But if it's a small group, then I say let it be deactivated after the passing of the soul adm.

Whoa.

Thanks, Eric. I should check my inbound links more often.

Me and my friend thought about this for an hour today. we came to the conclusion that your facebook account would just stay the same. but i think Eric Zigler above is right. you can report a dead person on facebook.

I'd been wondering about this for a few weeks. Me and a friend had been discussing it in great length.


Awesome to finally have an answer.

I have 2 friends that have died (one a few years ago and the other recently) and their pages are both up. One of them actually had a picture of his empty dorm room as his profile picture, as if he knew something was about to happen to him, it is still kind of eerie to visit his page and see that picture there.