“Internet users leave vast volumes of online data behind when passing away, commonly referred to as digital remains…”
— from “Are the dead taking over Facebook? A Big Data approach to the future of death online” January 2019
Facebook thoughtfully reminded me, yesterday, that it was my friend Winston’s birthday. Normally, I would have been grateful for the reminder — I don’t have a impressive record, remembering friends’ birthdays. Facebook, meanwhile, does a great job of remembering each and every sentimental occasion, thanks to $4 billion worth of “network equipment.”
Except that my friend Winston died five years ago — suddenly, from a heart attack. He never had time to delete his Facebook account. When Winston’s soul floated up to heaven, he left behind his physical body, his fabulous comic book collection from the 1970s, and numerous other earthly possessions. But he took with him, his Facebook password.
That might mean that his Facebook photos and postings and comments — and his birthday — will continue to live on, somewhere within that $4 billion computer network. Possibly forever. Facebook currently has a policy where they do not delete profiles of the deceased — even upon request from next of kin — as the company “pledges to respect the privacy of users,” even post-mortem. According to a new analysis by a couple of academics from the Oxford Internet Institute — Carl J Öhman and David Watson — somewhere between the year 2070 and the year 2100, the dead people featured on Facebook will outnumber the living users.
My friend Winton will be just one of a vast army of zombie Facebook users at that point… along with me and all of my other Facebooks friends who’ve not yet grasped the fact that, together, we will exist indefinitely as Facebook pages. All of us, sending out birthday reminders to all our embalmed friends.
Today, Facebook has about two billion users and it’s been estimated that about 8,000 users die every day. Based on Facebook’s user statistics in 2018, the Oxford researchers have predicted the number of zombie accounts could reach at least 1.4 billion — and potentially as high as 4.9 billion — by the end of the century.
From the Oxford analysis:
“…As Orwell so adroitly observed in [his novel] ‘1984,’ those who control our access to the past also control how we perceive the present. So, in order to prevent a possibly dystopian future of power asymmetries and distorted historical narratives, the task before us is to design a sustainable, dignified solution that takes into account multiple stakeholders and values. This inevitably requires a decentralization of control and ownership of our collective digital heritage…”
Would I intentionally choose Facebook as my eternal mortician and biographer? Hardly. But in order to plot a different future for my digital remains — and I hope you don’t mind the use of the word “plot” — I now realize that I’m going to have to rewrite my will.
“To my oldest daughter Natalie, I leave my Facebook account and password. Feel free to delete all those comments I posted about your mother during the divorce.
“To my dear son Fredrick, I leave my Instagram account and password, and my 1,256 Followers.
“And to my youngest daughter Wendy, who took care of me when I was too weak to post or comment, I bequeath my YouTube channel, my LinkedIn account, and my Twitter account.
“Guys, make me look good. I’m counting on you. I want to be liked, forever.”