Facebook’s underground obituary pages
“Without established social norms and taboos as a guide, the rules for how we mourn online are still being written, and social media platforms may play an outsized role in determining them. ‘Facebook isn’t a cemetery. Facebook is a community with dead people scattered about,’ said Brubaker, who was part of the product team that built the social network’s legacy contact system, launched in 2015. As platforms continue growing, this disorganized archive of deceased users will expand as well. Eventually, researchers from Oxford University’s Internet Institute predict Facebook may host more profiles for dead people than people who are alive.”
February 2021, Rest of World
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