We’ll cop to having a morbid fascination with death, which might explain why Facebook’s decision to allow memorialized profiles struck us as interesting/darkly funny. Especially with less than a week to go before Halloween. Head of Security Max Kelly explains in the official blog post, “Obviously, we wanted to be able to model people’s relationships on Facebook, but how do you deal with an interaction with someone who is no longer able to log on? When someone leaves us, they don’t leave our memories or our social network. 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.”
As CNET’s Caroline McCarthy explains, once a profile has been “memorialized,” contact information is removed, and the page is only accessible and searchable for confirmed friends. The wall section of the profile will still be active for leaving notes/sharing memories.
And before you go trying to kill off any of your frenemies, this is no Burger King free Whopper promo. There’s a strict protocol for memorializing profiles: You’ll have to be able to provide proof that you knew the person (an email address, their birthday) and a link to their obit.
So, what do you think? Do you like the ideal of achieving immortality on Facebook? Or will you delete your profile later in life to avoid social networking FOREVER? Do you think there should be some sort of DNR option for people who don’t want their profiles to be alive longer than they are?