Are you ready for your daily dose of anger today Internet?

My brother passed away. His Facebook account was memorialized.

First, let’s look at Facebook’s policy.

No one can log into a memorialized account.

More from an authorized/official Facebook note

 

If you are wondering about legacy contacts, they are not supposed to be able to log into your deceased loved one’s messages either.

With that as background, here is the fiasco. Screenshots on left, my commentary is on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the insensitivity Facebook.  Looks like I’ll be selecting the auto-delete option on my Facebook account when I pass.

It was mentioned that possibly the messages are left open so persons who may not know of the loved one’s passing can be notified. If that is true they really ought to state it in the Facebook privacy policy and an auto notification should be sent from a bot. I never got a notification. So, if the messages are left open and mine was marked with the “Seen” check mark does that mean a human Facebook admin is reading the message?

Another point of interest, a relative’s son passed away and she has been sending him messages over the years since his account was memorialized. She checked the messages she’d sent over the last few years since his passing and not one had the “Seen” check mark. She also sent a test message to my brother’s account and it doesn’t show the “Seen” check mark.

I don’t want access to my brother’s account. I just want to be sure that indeed no one can read messages sent to him after his account was memorialized. I figured nobody could because that is FB policy, but then why the “Seen” check mark on just my message and no one else’s? 

Someone told me maybe this is a technical a fluke that is my brother’s way of letting me know he knows I miss him and I admit to having that same thought :).  Miss you bro. But I still want to hear from Facebook what the explanation is for this.