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Comment by Udo | Hacker News Reader

"Facebook tends to “memorialise” their account – freeze them so they can be viewed, but providing no access to past messages. [...] Facebook also offended a fair number of bereaved people with its Year in Review clips [...] The problem was that for some, these were pictures of dead loved ones."

Here is something I really don't understand. For some reason it's apparently preferred, both by Facebook as well as people overall, to rub out a deceased person's digital existence - as opposed to preserving a bit of their life and writing for posterity.

To me, the "memorialization" of FB accounts looks like an almost cynical choice of words considering what it actually entails. Do we really prefer to pretend dead people never existed in the first place?

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> preserving a bit of their life and writing for posterity

This is exactly what * memorialization* does, as I understand it. The account is preserved as "Remembering XYZ" but does not apprar in public lists. Existing content will still be available, but it can no longer be used to post new messages or photographs. Family and friends can still post comments and pass on condolences. It seems appropriate, and a sensible and respectful choice on their part. Of course, there are always going to be people who want the accounts to be deleted, and Facebook should accomodate these wishes. But memorialisation seems like the right option for most people. See here for the actual policy:

https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143

> Facebook also offended a fair number of bereaved people with its Year in Review clips [...] The problem was that for some, these were pictures of dead loved ones."

There was a recent ad on FB from a maker of teapods that said something like "share a cup of tea with your dad". Unfortunately, that ad was shown to people whose fathers were dead or abusive. My dad died before FB so I've never had any account in my friends list that an algorithm could consider to be my father. I'd link to it but I genuinely have no idea how to link to a Facebook post. :-/

https://www.facebook.com/TassimoUK?pnref=story and the "Share a cuppa with your dad and show him how much you care this Father’s Day ‪#‎ChooseNotToChoose‬" which has about 500 comments of mostly people saying their father is dead.

> There was a recent ad on FB from a maker of teapods that said something like "share a cup of tea with your dad". Unfortunately, that ad was shown to people whose fathers were dead or abusive. My dad died before FB so I've never had any account in my friends list that an algorithm could consider to be my father. I'd link to it but I genuinely have no idea how to link to a Facebook post. :-/

Is that really fair? How is that different from an ad on TV saying the same thing?

TV ads never claim to harvest my data to make ads "more relevant" to "my interests".

That's a thing that Facebook and most online add networks claim.

> TV ads never claim to harvest my data to make ads "more relevant" to "my interests".

For now.

True, however the 'ad' in particular was just a generic (perhaps promoted?) status update to a #Brand page https://www.facebook.com/TassimoUK

TV doesn't show you pictures of your actual father. That has a different emotional impact over a generic TV ad.

Neither did the post that the commenter was talking about. It was just a generic status update put out by a #Brand

> I genuinely have no idea how to link to a Facebook post. :-/

The link to the individual item is the light gray date just below the author link, in this case that leads to https://www.facebook.com/TassimoUK/videos/945287165523252/

I'm guessing Tassimo's ad agency isn't UK based - a cuppa always means tea¹ but Tassimo is a coffee-pod company aren't they, and their ad [thanks to PavlovsCat for the link] shows only coffee drinks that I noticed.

Funny how this sort of nuance really turns one off a company; I guess because it highlights the fact they're merely trying to manipulate your emotions when they don't take care with elements of national identity that directly relate to their area of commerce.

It's like if McDo advertised they do "real American style fries" in France.

>Do we really prefer to pretend dead people never existed in the first place?

I think that we consider facebook, a commercial entity based on data-mining every scrap of information it holds, an inappropriate place to memorialise our loved ones.

That's a separate question though. Fact of the matter is people do tend to put an enormous part of their lives on social media platforms. So it's on there right now, which is too late to consider if it was a good idea to trust an unreliable medium to steward your data to begin with.

What I'm concerned about is that when a friend or family member dies, you have to cope with the loss of the person, but on top of that Facebook forcibly arranges for you the loss of all corresponding data as well. They're effectively saying "Well, this guy's dead now, so we're taking away the documentation of all shared memories with that person. We're honoring the deceased by erasing their digital existence as best as we can."

> we're taking away the documentation of all shared memories with that person

They aren't taking anything away.

See my earlier comment about what memorialization actually entails. Nothing is erased, the content is preserved for family and friends. Of course the account status is changed, it would be inappropriate for a dead person's account to show up in lists of contacts to invite to events, and so on.

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