Dealing With Digital Legacies After Users Die

From the creator

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report, from http://voaspecialenglish.com | http://facebook.com/voalearningenglish Benjamin Stassen took his own life in 2010. His parents thought their 21-year-old son was happy. Since his suicide, they have attempted to learn why he killed himself. Alice and Jay Stassen thought Benjamin's Facebook account might hold clues to his suicide. But the account does not belong to them, nor did it belong to their son. Facebook owns everything in his account. That is what the company says in its user agreement. Jay Stassen says he found it difficult even to communicate with Facebook. If you search on the home page of Facebook for an email address, a mailing address, a phone number, or a contact person to help, he says, you will find little information. A court ordered the company to let the Stassens see their son's account. But, Facebook has yet to obey the order.34-year-old Mac Tonnies died in his sleep in 2009. He left behind a lot of online friends, many of whom liked his futuristic blog, "Post-Human Blues." Work on the blog stopped when he died. A short time later, the comments area was filled with unwanted advertising. That angered his friend Dia Sobin. He said the advertising, or spam, dishonored his friend. Lawyer John Boucher stays informed about digital rights and the law. But he admits that he and his wife have signed many user agreements without reading them. He says he would not know how to get information from his wife's acco

Published 2012-08-16 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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