Social Networking after Death

I like pumpkin cookies, like those pumpkin lattees that you can get over at the Starbucks. I like pumpkin seeds have been roasted for a long time. And you know what I really like was that chunkin pumpkins. I was gonna say, if you're gonna do that, you know, I have all those things you gotta you have to bust some pumpkins. Yeah, and you know what, there's no more effective way than busting a pumpkin than by propelling it

several hundred feet into a field. You know, I I kind of doubt that, but it's nowhere near as much fun as doing it. It's definitely the one of the more spectacular ways to get at pumpkin enterds. Well, if you're going to do that, then you should probably tune in on the Science Channel in November twenty six for the Road to Punkin Chunkin and then at nine o'clock Punkin Chunkin. Yes, eight and nine o'clock. Those are when

those shows come on. You get to see all how all these these folks put together various pumpkin propelling devices, so everything from catapults to trebuches, two cannons to there's a centrifugal one where it has to make a full rotation before it can release the pumpkin. Release the pumpkin. I like to pretend like there's some sort of besieging army that is being pelted by pumpkins. That would be fun. I would definitely turn around and run if I I

saw pumpkins flying at me at high lost. Yeah, no, kitten, But yeah, you guys should check that out. Yeah, let's move on to our topic of discuss ship. Yes, today it's a little bit more somber. Although in the past we've discussed somber stuff, we've been accused of being a little too somber. So we're gonna be goofy, what happens after you die and you've got all these social networks? Um? So yeah, No, this is actually a question that's that's

getting some traction. Uh, what's a good question because because we didn't have to worry about this stuff until recently, right, more and more of us are getting involved in having some sort of online presence on a social network like Facebook or Twitter, my Space or whatever, um even flicker things like that. And as we do that, we have to start asking ourselves some pretty tough questions like if I if I were to pass away, if I were to die somehow I walked out of here and got

hit by a bus, what happens to that information? Does it stay there forever? Could someone else access it? Could people who hated me leave really nasty messages about me after I die, making my family and friends upset? Assuming I have any friends. I mean, we're doing a hypothetical here, right right, But I mean that that's the thing is that in all these cases, you know, it's all sort

of hypothetical because it depends on who you're talking about. Yeah, so, because you know, anybody and everybody is creating a social networking and there there are no guidelines in the United States at any rate to official rules suggest Yeah, there's nothing that's there are no laws in place that species specify what social networking sites can and cannot do, or you know, any kind of rules they should follow should one of the members pass away. Uh, that hasn't stopped

some of the sites from formulating their own policies. And we'll get to that in a second. But a lot of what happens depends upon you and your family. So let's start with what you can do in order to protect your your online presence, or even just as a way of letting people you know online what has happened. I mean, there there are people who have lots and lots of friends who their main and sometimes only way

of connecting with these people is through social networks. I mean, I've got a ton of friends that, UM, I don't email them, I don't call them, but I see their updates on Facebook. I might see a tweet from them something like that. UM. So if I were to die, how would how would how would I How would anyone get the word out to them? UM? Here's some options you can have. One, of course, is that you make a record of all your user name and password information

and you entrust that to someone. Now you can get because most most sites that do have policies require somebody to notify them with official proof. Right. So, but let's assume that the site you're we're talking about here doesn't necessarily have an official policy. Now, they may handle things on a case by case basis. But if you wanted to try and just do a blanket approach so that no matter what the site was, your family wouldn't have to go through the process of contacting the site verifying

your death that kind of thing. Um, all they would have to do is they would have the the information there. They could just go ahead and log in into the to your account. So you could create a record of all your log in information and give it to someone, or you could use a service like legacy Locker, which allows you to store use your name and password information for a fee, an annual fee or an upfront one time cost. I think the one time cost is right now and the year lea fee is I think is twenty,

so they would store the information for you. Uh. Some people suggest that maybe that's not the best approach because it's a weak point of attack. If a hacker were to somehow access that information, they would have all of your log in information for all of your sites. Uh. Some people suggest that one thing you could do is just give half of your inform nation to one source

and the other half to another. So you might give your user names to one person and the passwords to another and not let them know who the other one was, like the secret formula. But then how do they know to hook up after you've passed away and then get all the information out? Or you could tell them about

each other. Or you could lock one set in a company like Legacy Locker and that has the the uh, the directions to release that information upon your death, and then the person would have the first half of it could put together in the access the information. It seems like you could put it in a safe deposit. Poah, you could do that too. The issue that has brought up often is that most people don't even think about it, and even when right, yeah, you draft a will, you

don't necessarily think who gets my Facebook? You know, just you're you're worried about this? Yeah, yeah, they don't think of pro troofiles like property. Yeah, I mean you're not talking about it. Who takes care of your kids and what happens to the house, and you know who's going to get the cat right, and and it also concerns other people. It's not like your profile is just your information.

So on let's let's use Facebook as an example again, because that's that's one of the most recognizable social networking

sites in the United States. I would argue it's the most and and they have a policy which but with Facebook, you know, you've got your information that you've put into your profile, but there's also all the information people have left, like if they've flagged photos of you, if they've left messages on your wall, if they've you know, if you've installed applications that allow people to interact with your profile

in various ways. There's a lot of different information there that is not technically generated by you, and so that raises questions too, like who owns that information? Now, if you read the terms of service, technically Facebook does, Facebook owns the rights to display all that information. But um, but you know, again, if you're applying this to other sites across the internet, depending on the terms of service, it's you know, it's a tricky situation. It's not necessarily

cut and dry. So um, but let's say that, you know, let's say that you have not set aside all your user name, password information. You haven't you have not collected your log in information for someone to get hold of after your death, and then well you can't do anything really because you know, you're just kind of moldering in the grave. You know, you're such an outlet. They're pretty much done as far as the uh, the whole pursuing

the social networking thing goes. I mean, there may be a death book out there, but um, I'm not privy to it yet. Yeah, you know they're they're anyway. Um. Oh, well that's true, but we won't. We don't need to get into that yet. But um but yeah, so what can your family and friends do? So, in the case of Facebook, again using them as an example, you have

to contact Facebook officials and give them proof. Uh you know that someone somebody you know has passed away, someone with a Facebook profile, because they don't care if it's you know, just some random person. Seriously. Okay, well I'm just pointing. I'm just saying it because someone's going to write in, Uh, there's an online form. Facebook has an actual online form that you go in and you fill out. You include the person's name and their profile information and

an obituary. You know, you have to have a link to an obituary or some news article like, uh, you know, let's say that your friend um, you know, burned up on reentry after being shot through the air by a tribute. I'm just saying that would have to be an awfully powerful tribute to get them outside the atmosphere. I'll show you my plans after the podcast, but you have to you have to send them proof. Yeah, so you've sent them the proof and then Facebook's what they what they

will do is they give you two options. The family and choose to either close the account, which means that Facebook will delete all that information. It will be gone. Anyone who was friends with you will now see an empty spot. There will there will there will no longer be a you in that friends list. The other option

is to turn it into a memorial site, a memorial profile. Now, memorial profiles are special in that the only people who can interact with memorial profiles are pre existing friends, people who were friends with with the person before they died, So random people cannot suddenly befriend a dead person. And leave messages on that person's memorial wall. Only the people who are already friends can leave any sort of messages.

They can only post to the wall. Really, they cannot UH status updates things like that, those are all deleted. Personal identification information can also be deleted, things like UH addresses, phone numbers, that kind of thing, So to prevent people from just ending UH information or letters or whatever to

the family. A lot of families say that while they understand the compassion that strangers may have for someone who passes away, it can actually make it more difficult to deal with the grieving process when people are constantly bringing it up to you and you have you know, there's no you have no connection to these people because they

are getting something off their chest. But you can't really you know, if you don't know them, there's no way to kind of reciprocate that, right, So you just get more and more burdened on you while these people are expressing compassion UH. And it's it's a difficult thing because you know, as a compassionate person, of course, I would feel sorry for someone who had lost a person that was important to them, even if I didn't know who that person was. But I don't want to add more

burden to the griever then they're already experiencing. So that information is taken away. The SaaS updates are taken away, which is probably a good thing because you know, it depends on what your last status update was. You do not want your last stas update to say something like, dude, I was so drunk last night. I don't even know the person I woke up with. That would be an awkward last word to have on your Facebook, So that

gets deleted. But friends and family can leave messages on your wall, and many of them use the Facebook a sort of a gathering place to grieve and to heal and to offer support to one another and to share memories of the person who has passed away. And uh, and in that sense, it's a it can be a very valuable asset for people who are trying to deal with the loss. Um. But yeah, so those are your two choices. That's that's the two basic choices. And uh, not every site does this. Not every site has a

specific policy to handle this kind of situation. And like, um, my Space for a really long time, I mean that the thing about my Space was they handled everything on

a case by case basis. Yeah, yeah, so um yeah, right, now there's information up at the site and it says that you need to provide um an obituary or a death certificate, and they give you an email address to send it to you, and you write from a personal email address and explain your connection to the person who has passed away and your request to delete the profile entirely or to you know, remove certain parts of it. It doesn't appear that there is some kind of a

memorial account um. Of course, in either case you have to let them know because otherwise, you know, they have no way of knowing. So then the account will just continue indefinitely until somebody says, hey, you know this person is no longer around yeah Facebook. Facebook specifically UM states that they will not delete a user account UH for inactivity at all. You you have to either request it

yourself or again if someone has way. Someone has to be able to requested improved that the person has passed away, so the otherwise the the account will just sit there forever. And of course if it's not turned into a memorial account, all the rules are out the window. The sas updates are still gonna be there. People can leave whatever messages they want. People. If you have not set your profile to private, people will be able to find you in search.

They cannot find you in search if your account has been turned to a memorial account, if they are no longer, if they have never been your friend, they won't be able to find the profile. Um so all of that is off the table. If no one speaks up on your behalf when you pass away, your account will just sit there indefinitely until Facebook itself crumbles to the to dust. But uh um, yeah, I mean that's that's something to

think about. Two. I mean it's weird to think about this because really, to the people who have passed away, it's not really gonna matter. You know, you, You no longer need to have earthly concerns like who is leaving what on your profile. It's more for the people who are left behind. Which is a weird way to think about it, because your profile is a very personal thing. It's all about you, but all of it, Yeah, it's all about It's all about the people who knew you.

So it's a weird, weird. Wait, you have to shift your thinking when you get to this this kind of situation. Uh So, let's uh, think about some other elements of social networking passing away. UM. Facebook has a specific policy in place that it will not divulge login information to anyone, right, so, uh, your privacy is protected in that sense. There no one's gonna be able to log into your account unless they're able to guess your password or you've given your password

to someone. Uh. No one's gonna be able to log into your account and change anything, which is good because that would also be very upsetting to see someone's profile change after they've passed away. Yeah, that's a very sick joke. Uh, even if it's done with the best of intentions, I would imagine that would have some pretty nasty repercussions from friends and family who would think it would not be kind of crass. So uh so Facebook does not give

that information out to anyone. UM. And when it converts a profile into a memorial profile, there's no way to log into that profile, even if you have the user name and password. So if if you've given the user name and password to someone, but they choose to convert your profile to two memorial status, uh, no one will be able to get into that and make any changes from that point on. Um and again other sites, it's more of a case by case basis. A lot of

them haven't really thought of it. I mean, when you're creating a social networking site, this is the sort of thing that's like furthest from your mind. You're really trying to think of ways to create an environment where people can connect with one another and use your application and uh and and have it grow in popularity. You're not necessarily thinking, oh, what do I do if someone passes away? Um.

Then suddenly you you get confronted with an email. You know, you just completed around venture capital funding and you're thinking about how cool it is that you have this new side up, and then suddenly somebody goes, hey, you know, I hate to buggy about this, but you know, yeah, So, I mean it's a it's a difficult situation. It's not and it's not something that it's fun to think about

by initiation imagination, but it is something that's worth thinking about. Yeah, And I mean because a lot of this information, I mean it sort of depends on the account, but this information is out there on the server somewhere, and eventually, who knows where it's gonna end up. And you know, I shall also point out that we're recording this uh in early November two thousand nine, late October two thou nine,

Facebook made this this sort of approach official. But they've been the company had been doing this for a couple of years. It was just it was quiet. I mean, you you could contact them and you could have profiles converted to memorial profiles. UH already. It's just that they kind of they kind of made it an official announcement

in October. Part of that is probably due to Canada, because there are major concerns about online privacy in Canada, and a lot of companies that are springing up that are all about social networking raise concerns in the Canadian government's mind about not that the Canadian government has one mind, but the minds of government officials in Canada that um that perhaps they are not as careful about protecting privacy

as they should be. And when Canada started looking into things like that specifically at Facebook, one of the elements in there was, you know, I have a have a well defined policy of what happens if someone were to pass away and what would be done with that person's information. So that probably has something to do with it. And I suppose that probably also means that there are other sites that are working on developing policies that can be

clearly outlined. And I would imagine so, and you know, you think about it, there's so many sites out there. I just think of all the different sites that this applies to. And it's not just the things like Facebook and my Space. It's yeah, I mean I checked on Twitter and didn't see a thing, you know, photo photo sharing sites, YouTube, YouTube videos. Um, I mean, goodness knows that YouTube is already one of those places where I think the nastiest comments on the Internet kind of pop

up on YouTube. Stuff on there. It's YouTube and four chan. That's what the two places where you're gonna see the the the most tool curling, frightening stuff. Ever, that's not a knock against four Chan. I'm just saying, you go into that random channel, you are you are taking your Internet in your own hands. My friends, Um, those guys they play off and now, I mean, you know they find it fun, so more power to them. They're mostly

doing it to each other. So uh but the yeah, YouTube, same sort of thing, not same sort of thing, but YouTube. You see like these comments that can be really really critical. You don't want to see that popping up after someone passes away. What what if they're keeping a video journal and people are leaving nasty comments on that last video

journal entry. That's something that the family and friends are are possibly going to want to to revisit, as you know, this is a memory of someone they knew and it's the most recent version of whatever. And yeah, so there are a lot of things to think about, and we don't have answers for all of this because once again, technology is moving faster than culture is. And uh, I'm sure that we're going to see a lot more movement

on this in various ways. We're probably gonna see a lot of missteps where people are going to do what they think is the right thing. It's gonna come back and blow up in their face. It's just bound to happen because we're human beings. We make mistakes. Um. The thing important thing to remember is that I think everyone has the the same goal in mind, which is to

respect the members who joined the community. Um. It may be that they take the wrong path, but I think as long as everyone keeps that understanding, uh, we will eventually get to the right solution. I think Facebook is definitely on the right track. I can't really find any fault in in their process. No, and it's uh, it's pretty well thought out, you know, with different different contingencies. And you know the fact that there is a memorial

account is pretty nice. Ye. Yeah, I would like to say right now, I hope I don't see one for a really long time. So so to all my Facebook friends, eat your venis. Unless you're allergic, then don't. Okay, got anything else, Okay, let's let's move on to a little listener mail. This listener mail comes from ROSEMARYE. And Rosemary says, Hi, guys, I really like playing the old games on the original versions of Nintendo and have been rather confused by how

duck Hunt and similar arcade games work. The gun console has kind of left me bewildered, and I would like to learn about it. I don't know if you have covered this in a podcast or not, but I'm really curious in knowing how it works. Thanks much, Rosemary. Well, Rosemary, Uh, we have an article about this. It's actually a very short one, but I'll give you a kind of a rundown on how the light gun works for video games. So light guns have a little sensor in them called

a photo diode in the barrel. All right, that's since since his light that comes from your television screen. When you pull the trigger, it causes it sends a signal to the video game. It makes the television flash for a second. It flashes very very briefly. That's what the flash you see whenever you're playing Duck Hunt or Gumshoe or any of those other games that involved the light gun.

And when that screen flashes, what's happening is it's blanking the screen and painting just the target a single color. So you're either getting a black screen with a white object or a white screen with a black object. And if the diode is able to pick up that object, it counts it as a hit. So it all has to do with sensing light. And it does this really really fast, so we just see the screen flicker. We don't necessarily see the actual, you know, outline of the object.

But that's why you'll see that that quick flash whenever you're playing with those old light gun games. And um, it's kind of a neat, neat way of a really creative way of causing finding a new user interface for video games I thought it was pretty cool. So, um, now the newer games are different there. They don't necessarily use that same technology like the WE games. They use that that's using an accelerometer and other elements to detect where your WE mode is pointed. There's an infrared ray,

there's a sensor that's that's a different monster altogether. We're talking about the old games here. It would be it would have to be constantly flashing as you use your you know, WE remote as, and then those of us with epilepsy would really hate playing games, yes, exactly. Fortunately that's not how it works, So Rose Marie, I hope that answers your question. If any of you have any other questions, concerns, criticisms, suggestions for episodes, you can email us.

Our email address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com. Remember we've got our live show every Tuesday one pm Eastern. You can find that at the blogs at how stuff works dot com. Just look on the right hand side and uh, if you want to learn more, there's actually an article up on the site about what happens to my online personal information after I die? Written by yours Truly that was a real joy to research.

Let me tell you um, but that's also available how stuff works dot com and Chris and I will talk to you again really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com And be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog now on the House Stuff Works homepage, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you