Facebook: what happens after someone passes away

In this era when the Internet reigns and people belong to virtual communities, new questions arise – such as how to handle social networking accounts postmortem.

“When someone leaves us, they don’t leave our memories or our social network,” Max Kelly, Facebook’s chief security officer, posted on the site’s official blog Oct. 26. “To reflect that reality, we created the idea of ‘memorialized’ profiles as a place where people can save and share their memories of those who’ve passed.”

In order to memorialize someone’s Facebook profile, a family member or close friend must file a request form found under the “Settings” tab that includes the name of the deceased, Web address of the person’s profile, proof of death, relationship of the petitioner and other information.

According to Kelly’s blog post, after the memorial form is completed, Facebook privatizes the account so that only people who are already confirmed friends can view the profile. Some functions are disabled, such as status updates and contact information. To respect privacy, the account is locked so that it becomes impossible to log onto using the deceased person’s password.

Following the death of sophomore Peter Duong, who was hit by a car Sept. 9, some of his friends decided to memorialize his Facebook profile.

Although Peter Duong’s name does not appear in a Facebook search, those who are already on his list of friends can see and write on his profile.

Since Duong’s profile is memorialized, people can’t tamper with it, which is reassuring for his family, said Duong’s former roommate, sophomore Marisa Arthur.

“It’s a good way to know people are thinking about him,” said sophomore Megan Shafer, a high school friend of Duong’s.

Shafer, along with sophomore Zach Ammerman, a friend of Duong’s and an Indiana Daily Student columnist, both filed to memorialize Duong’s profile after someone posted a comment on Facebook explaining the process.

Ammerman said that it felt like something he should do to represent the fact that Duong had passed away so that people can go there and remember him.

Arthur said the only disadvantage of the process is that people who are not already on his friends list can’t see his wall, so they can’t know him in that way.

“I write on it daily, almost. I can contact him in a way,” Arthur said. “It helps to see others feel the same way.”