Death in the Digital Era & Life After Death on the Net:
the Digital, Virtual and Online Aspects of Current Death
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Vered (Rose) Shavit's Blog
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death.in.digital.era@gmail.com **I left the Digital Death realms in Mar. 2018 and returned to them in Nov. 2023, but so far only to the Hebrew version of the blog**
All the content in the blog is available free of charge and can be found in the menu to the left. Please feel free to scroll down in order to become acquainted with all the content which might possibly be of interest or of service to you
I wrote a guide about Death In The Digital Era: Initial information about how to deal with the digital, virtual and online aspects of current deaths. It's a booklet you can read, download, save and print at any time and at no cost. The guide is aimed both at the grieving family members themselves and at the professionals who support bereaved people: psychologists, social workers, military professionals, volunteers in non-profit associations etc.. I would appreciate getting your feedback about it: both if it was of assistance to you and if you have encountered - as part of your personal dealings or someone else's - additional topics which this booklet has not yet addressed. I'll be happy to broaden it and make sure it gives a precise and complete a guide as possible following such feedbacks. Please feel free to write to me either via email: death.in.digital.era@gmail.com or via the Facebook page of the blog.
You can scroll in it using the keyboard arrows or the bar on the side.
The guide was first published in Hebrew on my brother's birthday: August 17th. Today, March 2nd, the date in which he was killed, it is published in English. I wish to thank the following people, without whom the English version might not have come into being:
Amir Shemesh, who simply, one day, out of the blue, sent me an email saying: "Hi, I know you wish for your guide to be translated to English, enclosed please find the first draft" (we've never even met).
Mórna O Connor, a colleague and a friend, who, upon hearing that I was disappointed by someone who took the language check and proof reading upon herself and then disappeared, immediately suggested that she'll take this task upon herself in her stead.
Shiri Yeshua, a graphic designer and a friend, who does all the graphic design for Digital Dust pro-bono since it first went online in 2012, and after designing the Hebrew version of the booklet, volunteered to also design the English version.
I hope you know how much I appreciate your assistance and how awed and humbled I am by it. I simply could not have done it without you. Thank you for all the time, effort and good will you have put into this.
I have deliberately focused in this guide on posthumous dealings. Managing our Digital Death issues while we are still alive is a different matter, which I hope to address in another booklet, but for now, this booklet intentionally deals onlywith after death digital issues. If you wish to know more about how to manage your digital legacy while you're still alive, please visit the following posts in this blog:
In April 2014 AVG published their own free eBook for Dealing with Digital Death. It's written in an angle which is a bit different from mine, so you might find it of interest to you as well.
Today, Feb. 12th, Facebook announced a new service: the possibility of Adding a Legacy Contact. April 30th 2015 update: This is now active in Canada as well as in the USA. May 12th 2015 update: featured in Australia, New-Zealand and Japan. July 27th update: available now in the UK too, and thanks Michael Diamond. August update: available now also in Finland and Denmark. Thanks Stine Gotved and Anna Haverinen for letting me know. September update: Now available in Israel too.
Here are some quotes and images form their official press release:
"Today we're introducing a new feature that lets people choose a legacy contact—a family member or friend who can manage their account when they pass away. Once someone lets us know that a person has passed away, we will memorialize the account and the legacy contact will be able to:
Write a post to display at the top of the memorialized Timeline (for example, to announce a memorial service or share a special message)
Respond to new friend requests from family members and friends who were not yet connected on Facebook
Update the profile picture and cover photo
If someone chooses, they may give their legacy contact permission to download an archive of the photos, posts and profile information they shared on Facebook. Other settings will remain the same as before the account was memorialized. The legacy contact will not be able to log in as the person who passed away or see that person’s private messages.
Alternatively, people can let us know if they'd prefer to have their Facebook account permanently deleted after death. Until now, when someone passed away, we offered a basic memorialized account which was viewable, but could not be managed by anyone. By talking to people who have experienced loss, we realized there is more we can do to support those who are grieving and those who want a say in what happens to their account after death.
Here's how to choose a legacy contact: Open your settings. Choose Security and then Legacy Contact at the bottom of the page.
After choosing your legacy contact, you’ll have the option to send a message to that person.
You may give your legacy contact permission to download an archive of the posts, photos and profile info you've shared on Facebook.
We’ve also redesigned memorialized profiles to pay tribute to the deceased by adding “Remembering” above their name and making it possible for their legacy contact to pin a post to the top of their Timeline.
We're introducing legacy contact in the US first and look forward to expanding to more countries. Setting up a legacy contact is completely optional.
Our team at Facebook is grateful and humbled to be working on these improvements. We hope this work will help people experience loss with a greater sense of possibility, comfort and support".
A memoralized profile with
the word "Remembering" added to the name and
a post created and pinned by the Legacy Contact.
My first reaction is - Yay! Wow. A definite improvement to the existing (non-existing) Facebook policy in this regard. Facebook is the second company to offer an in-house solution: Google was the first, in April 2013, with her 'Inactive Account Manager'. You can read more about it in my posts here and here. Many websites offer options to manage your digital legacy - a list can be found in this post of mine here. (Actually it's the second-and-a-half company if we were to count Yahoo! Japan's service as well). I still had a few questions after reading this press release, which I directed at Jodi Seth, a Facebook Spokesperson (Manager of Policy Communications, to be precise):
Q: What about pages the deceased was an Admin to? Will the Legacy Contact have access to those as well, even just to appoint another Admin? I hate seeing valuable content - of both sentimental and financial value - lost over an account being memorialized, when another Admin hasn't been appointed before or after the death of the sole admin of a page. A: No, the legacy contact only applies to personal profiles at this time, but it is something we will certainly think about as this evolves.
Q: Has anything changed regarding what happens to an account of a person who dies without nominating a Legacy Contact? A: Our current memorialization policies applies: someone can request the page be memorialized (viewable, but not managed by anyone), and the family may still request the account be deleted.
Q: Will users be prompted to sign up for this service? A: They will not. We have posted information in our newsroom and hope that and the media coverage will encourage people to sign up as they see fit.
Q: I'm uncertain about tagging: can someone be tagged in a picture or a post once their account has been memorialized? If so, then: can the Legacy Contact control those tags? For instance, if a deceased person was tagged in an ad or something else which is unsuitable or inappropriate, can the Legacy Contact untag the deceased? (I didn't see any tagging reference here). A: Memorialized accounts can be tagged, and whether or not the tag shows up to friends depends on the settings they had during their life. Legacy contacts cannot currently untag, but they can reach out to the person who tagged the deceased person and ask that they remove the tag. And anything that goes against our Community Standards can be reported and we would review and delete as appropriate.
Q: Will the Legacy Contact have permission to delete posts from the timeline after the account has been memorialized? For instance, if hurtful, un-kind posts were posted, could the Legacy Contact remove it? A: No, we have a reporting process, which would allow people to report anything they feel violates our terms of service and Facebook would review and delete those things.
Q: It states that the Legacy Contact can "Respond to new friend requests from family members and friends who were not yet connected on Facebook": how about a "Follow" button, if the deceased hadn't set one himself/herself while he/she were still alive? Could the Legacy Contact add a "Follow" button, for people who would not wish the befriend the deceased but would like to follow, for example? A: No, a legacy contact could not add a follow button.
Q: Will the Legacy Contact be able to write a post on the timeline of the deceased and pin it there even if the "Who can post on your timeline?" settings was set to "only me" at the time of the death? If the timeline was set to "only me", will the Legacy Contact be able to change that to "friends", in order to allow the friends and family members of the deceased to express their grief there? A: A legacy contact could not change the settings that the account holder had in life - so if the person did not allow anyone to post on his or her timeline in life then the Legacy Contact could not change that after death.
Q: Could the Legacy Contact position be revoked or transferred? For instance, if a couple breaks up, could they revoke the position they have previously appointed to their former spouse, and/or transfer the position to their new spouse? A: Yes, a person may change their legacy contact as often as they like before death.
Q: Has the policy changed regarding who can notify Facebook about a death of a user and/or how that notification is made? I find the current policy, of anyone being able to report anyone, and that all that is required is a link to an obituary, troubling. This is what a form to 'Report A Deceased User' used to look like and this is what a 'Memorialization Request' looks like now. Does it only LOOK different, or is there a change of policy too behind the change in appearances? A: Anyone can request memorialization, but it is verified by our community operations team who thoroughly reviews each request – we ask for an obituary or news article, but we also use other social cues to verify that the request is legitimate. We have very low rates of false memorializations. Deleting an entire account after memorialization can only be requested by immediate family and that requires a death certificate. Memorialization requests are handled the same way.
October 2015 update: I wrote a separate post, explaining why I don't think this is a good and comprehensive enough solution, although it is an important step in the right direction.
Jed Brubaker isa PhD candidate in the department of Informatics at UC Irvine. Facebook involved him in this project as an academic collaborator, to share findings from his six years of researching death and grief on social media, and to provide feedback and guidance during the design and development of Legacy Contacts.
If you want to take this opportunity and become more acquainted with Jed's work, here are a few useful links:
“We will never forget you [online]”: An empirical investigation of post-mortem MySpace comments. Proc. CSCW 2011. Hangzhou, China. March 19–23, 2011. [pdf]
Grief-Stricken in a Crowd: The language of bereavement and distress in social media. Proc. ICWSM-12. Dublin, Ireland. June 4-8, 2012. [pdf]
Beyond the Grave: Facebook as a site for the expansion of death and mourning. The Information Society, 29, 3. [pdf]
Death, Memorialization, and Social Media: A Platform Perspective for Personal Archives. Archivaria, 77, 1-23. [link]
Stewarding a Legacy: Responsibilities and Relationships in the Management of Post-mortem Data. Proc. CHI 2014. Toronto, Canada. April 26 – May 1, 2014. [pdf]
Justin Ellsworth was a 20 years old United States Marine Corps Lance Corporal.
He served in Iraq and sent his family emails and pictures using his Yahoo account:
Print screens of emails Justin sent shortly before his death
A picture Justin sent his family from Iraq via email
In November 2004 Justin was killed in Iraq in an act of bravery which awarded him a Bronze Star Medal with Combat Distinguishing Device (V Device). Sadly, Justin did not become posthumously famous following his acts of bravery, but following the media coverage his family's law suit against Yahoo has received, asking for access to his email account (I wrote about this in the 2nd article I wrote for ynet in 2011). The words and pictures he sent and received during his deployment were very meaningful to them after his death.
A court order in favor of his family was issued following a prolonged legal battle in court. The family did not get his password, but they did receive a copy of the content of his email account on a DVD. Following this court ruling, Yahoo changed their terms of use, making sure this will not happen again:
"No Right of Survivorship and Non-Transferability: You agree that your Yahoo account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo ID or contents within your account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate, your account may be terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted".
The act was approved in July 2014 at the ULC's Annual Meeting and Delaware was the first state to enact it, in August 2014. I (and other Digital Death colleagues of mine) hope that more states will follow suit soon. The essence of this new act is that:
"...Legally appointed fiduciaries will have the same access to digital assets as they have always had to tangible assets, and the same duty to comply with the account-holder’s instructions".
And Yahoo? In September 2014 Yahoo wrote that they are against this new act. - Not only do they have such a strict, not-yielding, non-flexible policy regarding not granting posthumous access, they also disapprove of the new act. If their argument was that "we wish to maintain the user's privacy after his or her death regardless to his or her wishes", that would have been one thing. If their argument was that they don't like the current phrasing of the new law and they think it should be phrased differently, that would have been one other thing. But it is another thing when their arguments is that "it should be the user's choice":
Print screen: Yahoo's Tumbler
Seriously, Yahoo? If the user's choice is so important to you, why don't you launch a service similar to Google's "Inactive Account Manager"? (It's an imperfect service, but it's an important step in the right direction). Why don't you force your users to check boxes regarding their wishes for posthumous access, just like you force them to check boxes regarding reading your terms of use?
Graphics by Nimrod Benzoor
This is my proposal to websites, ISPs and platforms: force their users to state their wishes in case they will no longer be able to access their account
Why is your default choice - which is also the single, one and only choice - to have the account "terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted"? What if the user would have preferred for his or her loved ones to have access to his or her account after his or her death? If the deceased will pass the password on, they would be doing so in violation of your TOS (although you would probably never find out) and if the manager of his or her estate, a relative or a loved one were to contact you with a request for access, you wouldn't grant it. So how are you respecting the users choices? You're not giving them any! I agree: some people would prefer for their account to get terminated upon their death. It is a legitimate wish and should be respected. But what about the people who would prefer otherwise? From the results of a survey I held in Israel last year (in collaboration with two other blogs), we've learned that there is no one answer which suits all (sorry, hope to get around to translating the results soon, you can read some of it in a paper I co wrote with Dr. Roey Tzezana and was published in Finland this summer about the gap between ISPs / platforms / websites policies and people's wishes). Yahoo, it's true that a user has a right to maintain his or her privacy, but what about his / her right to share?
Facebook users can define other users as family members, and how are they related to each other. I don’t remember which of us initiated it, but Tal and I defined each other as siblings, and so when you enter my About section you can see he’s my brother:
Facebook screen shot - my profile
And when you check his About section, you can see I’m his sister:
Facebook screen shot - Tal's profile
Both sides must approve the family relation for it to appear in their profiles. People who knew Tal but didn't know his family, and saw his Facebook profile, could tell he had a sister: me. People who were present at his funeral and heard me speak there, could tell he had a sister: me again. But we have another sister, Inbal, who didn’t speak at the funeral nor does she have a Facebook profile - two legitimate personal choices, but the combination of which meant that many people who came to the Shi’va (Seven Days of Mourning, a Jewish tradition) did not even know she existed; they looked for me, but never knew they should probably be looking for her as well. Having had to say “we actually have another sibling” too many times, I ended up posting a clarification in Facebook that week: “We have another sister, Inbal, she’s simply not in Facebook".
A screenshot from my Facebook wall, March 5th 2011 (Tal was killed on March 2nd 2011)
I felt that Facebook became the only prism through which people see - well, anything, really; and that if it noted only one sister, that must be what Tal has: one sister.
If you’re there ,you do exist?
One tragic story shows this well (and thanks to Rinat Korbet for the link): twenty-something years old Jordan Buskirk and Randal Crosley from Indiana, United States, murdered 19 years old Katelyn Wolfe on June 6th, 2013.
They then posted updates on her Facebook to create the impression she was still alive.
Understanding murderers is impossible, but it’s easy to understand why they used Facebook to hide their deed: If you’re not there means you do not exist, it must work the other way around as well, meaning that if you're there, you do exist.
A communication platform, not only with the living
A certain moment in BBC’s Radio 4 excellent radio broadcast, Digital Human (season 2, episode 7), made me feel as if a light bulb lit up over my head, just like it does in cartoons. It was when Dr. Elaine Kasket said (time code 20:10):
"I've talked about Facebook as being a kind of modern-day medium, and the reason I called it that was because I was so struck by how my research participants, and my clients, that have been bereaved and continued to connect on Facbeook, experienced Facebook as pretty much the primary channel by which they were able to communicate directly to the dead. So, in Victorian times, you might go to a seance, you might sit around the table and there'd be a medium there who would be responsible for channeling the communications through to the people on the other side. In this case, Facebook, this technological phenomenon, is the medium. It's not a human medium but it's a technological one, and people are using the site as a conduit, as a channel, through which to get in contact with the dead".
Upon hearing that (disclosure: I was interviewed to the same episode: time code 11:22, continuously on and off till the end of the program) I suddenly realized this is what I have been doing: Consciously, I was tagging Tal and adding content to his wall so his friends would see and know what was going on, while subconsciously I was doing it so he would see, so he would know. On the 19th anniversary of writer and playwright Yigal Mossinson’s death, his son Gili posted something very touching on his own Facebook wall, which I think demonstrates Dr. Kasket’s opinion very well:
A screenshot from Facebook, May 2013
"Nineteen years ago today, my father passed away.I’m sure he’s well settled in the afterlife, and that puny things like the high cost of living concern him much less. My father taught me so much about life, and on my end I’ve been graced with meeting the greatest man I ever have: polite and talented, modest and funny. My father was the salt of the earth, but more than that - he was my best friend. For sixteen years I had the privilege of being a full-time son to him, and I feel the need to write the following: Father, I know you look at me from above with loving, embracing eyes. After all those years, this day of all days makes being far from you very hard. I know you won’t Like this post, nor will you share it, and I’m pretty sure there’s no internet in heaven. Either way, I’m writing this with all the love in my heart, and with a yearning that will probably never end. Father - I love you. Yours forever and ever - Gilgil"
On one end, Gili is well aware of the fact his father isn’t on Facebook: “I know you won’t Like this post; nor will you share it, and I’m pretty sure there’s no internet in heaven". On the other hand, Gili writes this for his father in Facebook; he communicates with him through Facebook. Whoever runs Tair Rada’s Facebook account - 13 years old Tair Rada was murdered in December 2006 - takes communicating with the dead one step further, and has been posting in her name many years after her death:
A status posted (from beyond the veil?) by Tair on Purim, February 2013
“To my darlings I wish today a happy Purim (a Jewish holiday involving costumes, much like Halloween), and to my dear ‘friends’ of the past I wish to say only this: no costume can hide the sins of your youth, the changing of heart and the obvious truth”.
(Thanks to Tom Eshchar for the link). The posts and clips aren’t simply posted on her profile; they’re posted as if she herself writes them (“my Bat Mitzvah clip” rather than “her Bat Mitzvah clip”) post mortem and in present tense, and some might find them both disturbing and difficult to read:
A status posted on Tair Rada’s wall on Hanukkah, December 2012.
"Hello everyone. I emerge from the darkness for a moment to wish everyone Shabbat Shalom, and to remind you all to remember me tomorrow, on the eve of Hanukkah, the festival of light; to remember that I, too, wish to no longer be afraid and to emerge from darkness into the light. I hope my voice will be heard, and that this long darkness will come to an end. I wish you a happy holiday - you, your families, and my beloved family as well. I will do my best to return tomorrow, I’m just a bit in a hurry here because I had traditional Jewish upbringing (Jews are required to avoid all ‘work’ - all computer activities included - during Shabbat, which is clearly starting while ‘Tair’ is posting this) and I respect my family and would not wish to hurt them. Shabbat Shalom, friends. I promise I’ll accept any friend requests that might arrive during the weekend as soon as I return. Shabbat Shalom".
Reading this makes me wonder who posts those updates - is it her lawyer or her family? Is this part of a campaign designed to keep her murder present in the media, or is this simply a way for the family members to keep in touch with her, to express their pain and any criticism they have regarding the investigation? I wrote a note to whoever updates her profile; I’ll update here once I have a reply.
Happy Birthday
Birthdays are a good opportunity for finding out which of the deceased’s Facebook friends actually knew them, for whom the birthday is nothing but a painful reminder, and those who didn’t know them - for whom the birthday notice is just another Facebook notice, which they reply with wishes for someone they, in fact, don’t know. Avi Cohen died on August 2012. On his birthday the following year, in April, my friend Doron Ofek posted his feelings with razor sharpness:
"Again we get a glimpse of Facebook’s morbid mishaps. On the right I have a notice stating it’s Avi Cohen’s birthday today (I won’t link to his page, it feels unfair). I went to his profile out of curiosity; it seems nobody handles it nor was it updated, because, much to my chagrin, I saw people were posting happy birthdays there… wishing him to live happily ever after. Avi died a few months ago in a motorbike accident. We have become the kind of people who spill their thoughts mindlessly without even once checking if it’s right, if it’s proper… this isn’t the first time I see something like this".
Here are a few examples of the cacophony found on Avi’s wall on April 2013, about eight months after his passing:
A birthday greeting on Avi’s wall on April 2013, from someone unaware of his death
“Dear Avi, happy birthday even though you’re no longer physically with us. Rest in peace".
A birthday greeting on Avi’s wall on that very day, from someone expressing pain over his passing
“Happy birthday Avi, may all of your wishes come true..!”
A birthday greeting from someone unaware of Avi’s death
“I wish… dear friend, I hope you found peace up there. We miss you horribly down here. Happy birthday, angel".
A birthday greeting on the same wall, that same day, from a friend missing Avi
"Mazal Tov Avi!!!"
Another greeting, similar yet different, from someone unaware of Avi’s death
"Avi, we’re celebrating your birthday. Celebrating with you every time we meet, or take a trip. Your image goes everywhere with us, we have pictures from trips and various meetups where you sit in the centre with that familiar smile. I hope you’re in a good place now, one full of motorbikes, and that you’re riding in the heavens. Friend, you are missed".
A friend missing Avi on his birthday
"Happy birthday!"
"Happy birthday Avi, many warm wishes"
"Happy birthday Avi :) All the best :) "
Three Facebook friends who apparently didn’t really know Avi, wishing him a happy birthday
"You’re somewhere out there… unforgettable. But here, deep in my heart, I feel you more than most".
A friend communicating with Avi on his birthday
"Happy birthday buddy! All the best!"
A friend posting a generic ‘best wishes’ on Avi’s birthday
"Dear Avi, you are deeply missed in our hearts. We stand in this memorial day, your birthday, and remember you, friend. You remain forever special in our hearts; rest in peace".
A friend commemorating Avi on his birthday
"Happy birthday and a happy holiday…"
A friend unaware of Avi’s death dedicates a song to him for his birthday
"My dear, late Avi Cohen: even when the light shines on us from the treetop, the roots still burrow deep in the ground in such autumn-fall days. Happy birthday".
A friend putting effort, thought and emotion into the greeting, and communicating them through Avi’s wall
"Happy birthday!"
And, on the same wall, a facebook friend decorates Avi’s wall with a balloon.
Both me and Doron found this distressing, but Avi’s daughter, Lilach Cohen Shilo, didn’t feel the same when I interviewed her:
“It was nice to see all the greetings, and very touching to see how loved he was, how loved and missed he still is. Those who don’t know he passed away were probably only acquaintances, not anyone close, so I don’t mind them not knowing. He had thousands of Facebook friends! Not all of them were close to him…”
As noted on this post’s first part - Death in Facebook, Facebook and Death - we see, time and time again, that this is a very personal experience: that which makes one person uncomfortable might bring comfort to another. Facebook allows us to post birthday greetings to anyone directly from our wall, without having us ‘bother’ to go to their timeline. I suggest not to use this option, to rather choose to enter the friend’s profile at least once a year, on their birthday - so that, if the worst had happened, at least you will know. This is particularly relevant with people you don’t know so well, or have not been in touch with - or in touch with their profile - for a while. Since there is still no clear etiquette regarding deceased in Facebook (in general) or on their birthdays (specifically), this topic comes up even in communities dedicated to entirely different things - for example, the Ynet Kosher Food community (an online forum). (thanks to Tzach Ben Yehuda for the link):
A screenshot from the Ynet Kosher Food community, November 2011
“A sensitive question:What do you do if one of your Facebook friends had passed away? Do you remove them from your friends list? My sister in law passed away a few months back and every time I open my Facebook her image pops up, and I scroll through the entire history and my heart breaks each time anew. On one hand, I can’t bring myself to delete her! On the other hand, this is really hard! I’m full of questions today".
A screenshot from the Ynet Kosher Food community, November 2011
Reply:
"Topic: The day before yesterday Fcabook reminded me about a Birthday of a friend who passed away.
A few months back I entered her page and wrote a few words about her birthday and about how much I miss her. I hope this might comfort her family some. Her children, who are already grown ups, sometimes go there and write things directed at her.
And there’s the page of our friend Gadi - we had such a reminder on his birthday as well, I wrote something and later I saw more people did the same. Not happy birthday greetings of course, but words of love and longing to this dear man, a food forum veteran who also visited our own Kosher food forum once in a while. It’s hard to say final goodbyes, and as another person here wrote, this keeps the deceased present in a way, along with the good memories they left of us".
A screenshot from the Ynet Kosher Food community, November 2011
“Topic: A good friend and a member of a forum passed away. Her page is active and we post in it.It has become a memorial page for her. She would have celebrated her birthday two weeks ago, so rather than posting ‘happy birthday’ on her wall we all posted memories and clips of music she liked, etc.. If you don’t enjoy it, you’re free to delete or block it. Personally I think it’s a memorial - even though it breaks our hearts".
A screenshot from the Ynet Kosher Food community, November 2011
“Topic: Another bitter story. One of my facebook friends committed suicide two years ago. He was a charming person I went to highschool with, until he couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t in touch with him, barring the odd peeking in his Facebook. Friends started posting their longing on his page, and every once in a while a heart-wrenching status turned up on my feed. Every year I’m reminded of his birthday by Facebook, and then there’s traffic in his page. And what’s rotten? That he’d made a few friends abroad during his travels, and they post the most lovely wishes, wishing him a happy life. Nobody has the guts to translate the original obituary for them and explain he can’t Like their posts. Moreover - here’s a few negative thoughts about those automatic greetings some people send: I can live with those being impersonal - in Facebook most people do the bare minimum needed with birthday greetings, and the really close friends either call you or physically celebrate with you. But when one of those automatic greetings shows up on his wall, full of cheery balloons and all, it really irritates me".
I agree with that post. It really irritates me as well. When people post birthday greetings regarding a long happy life on Tal’s wall I know that they’re unaware of the fact he’d passed away, and therefore I know they don’t know him. And then it irks and saddens me that there’s so many people who knew Tal and who love him still, who would have loved to be his Facebook friends but they aren’t - and there’s also a few fake profiles and a few people who have no idea who he was, who are his Facebook friends. Yossi Fink wrote in "Ace" site about how he feels in such birthdays - thanks to Ronni Kives for the link:
"My facebook friend, Alona Koren, had a birthday on February 4th. Many friends posted greetings on her wall, some just wrote a generic ‘happy birthday’ and others were more creative - for example, ‘wishes for many minutes that will grow to be a great time of new experiences, action and happiness for it all’. This really looked like any other Facebook page in the owner’s birthday, only in this case Alona no longer lives, she passed away this last October".
Fink’s link to Alona's profile is no longer valid; I hope that’s due to her family’s choice and not another one of Facebook’s mishaps. When reading the headline of Fink's article, stating it's “The weirdest thing I’ve seen on Facebook - prepare yourselves for a shock”, one must remember that this article was posted on March 2012. Nowadays it’s hard to believe it would have gotten a similar headline; statistics tell us that three Facebook users die every minute, which means we are all surrounded by profiles of people who have already passed away, and most of us have already, most likely, experienced the birthday of a deceased Facebook friend.
"I Liked a Memorial Ceremony"
Alon Metrikin-Gold amazed me with his Spoken Word performance (in Hebrew only, sorry), which took place on April 2012 on a Slam Poetry evening in Tel Aviv: “I Liked A Memorial Ceremony”:
“There’s no death in Facebook. There’s only an event called ‘Funeral’. There’s no grief or pain, only a status updating the memorial’s time. Against all laws of nature, her death doesn’t stop her getting new messages, sending ones of her own and updating when her birthday is coming. Her death as a whole boils down to a status change, and, like a ghost, she’s there with all my friends, entirely blending in. ... I send her songs and pictures from beyond the veil-pages, waiting for her to reply, for her to say ‘it’s my birthday today, would you like to post on my wall?”
This was part two. If you want to read the first part of 'Death in Facebook, Facebook and death', click here. Thank you Aya Shacham-Doman for translating this post.
