Facebook seems to be putting their foot in it quite a number of times in the last few weeks. Wonder if this is what we are to expect in the coming years from them. I read this post on The Consumerist website where a sister complained that Facebook refused to remove her recently deceased brother’s page after a formal request from her to do so. Other sites like Myspace had no problems doing so. Apparently Facebook wanted to keep the page up so that they could memorialize it and allow visitors to post their comments.
While I can see a certain validity in that approach, Facebook has to understand that death and how relatives of the deceased deal with death will be different. I too find it insensitive that they claim to know better than the next of kin how to deal with the person’s profile. If a formal request is made by the next of kin to remove their page, then they should do so without further discussion. This isn’t a complaint for goodness sakes.
I wonder if this lack of maturity on the part of Facebook in dealing with recent events can be classified under growing pains or whether its a symptom of the relative youth and inexperience of the founder. Their approach of “We know best” is irritating to most of the online community and given the number of choices we have, they had best understand that the same rules of sensitivity apply in the online world as they do in the real one.
Tong Hsien-Hui
Link: http://consumerist.com/5157481/facebook-wont-let-you-remove-dead-relatives-page-per-policy
Some Meowsings...... 