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For the people who are closest to someone who has passed away, the question of who now owns, controls, and has access to all this information is brought up. Even in our local region, situations like this are making news.
In Wayne County, a man whose wife passed away on Valentines day left him videos on her Facebook account for him to view after her death. Facebook's policy on so-called "memorialized" accounts is that no one is allowed access to them when they receive a valid request that the person has died; they can only be deleted by a family member's request. This poses a problem for situations just like the one in Wayne County. Should it really up to different social media sites how a deceased person's information is dealt with? What if the person left a video will on Facebook, and their spouse needed to view it to fulfill their loves one's final wishes?
Death is a very serious and personal issue, and in my opinion, should really be left to that person's spouse, or a close family member to deal with the still-living memories of that person on social media, not a giant internet company. Whether they choose to keep the accounts open and viewable to friends to post farewell wishes, or view private videos and photos before deleting the account, it should be up to them. If a universal law or rights for this new situation is passed, many difficult situations of ownership of content on social media can be solved.
To view the story posted on February 23, 2014 visit: http://bit.ly/1o48rU1
