Facebook reviews family memorials after dad's plea By Dave Lee

Technology reporter, BBC News Published duration 6 February 2014

image copyright YouTube/John Berlin image caption John Berlin posted his emotional plea to Facebook on YouTube

A father's plea to watch a video based on his dead son's Facebook page has provoked the network to look again at how families can remember loved ones.

Facebook recently launched a Look Back feature that creates a video generated by popular moments on a person's profile.

John Berlin posted a YouTube clip asking to see a Look Back video for his son Jesse, who died in 2012 aged 22.

After the plea gained support, Facebook told Mr Berlin a video would be made.

Mr Berlin, who is from Missouri in the US, was unable to create the video himself as he did not have access to his son's profile.

Facebook said it would create one on his behalf using content Jesse had posted publicly.

"It worked I was just contacted by FB by phone and they're going to make a vid just for us," John Berlin wrote in a status update

"They also said they're going to look at how they can better help families who have lost loved ones."

Following the incident, Facebook has said it is working on implementing further ways to deal with death on the network.

"This experience reinforced to us that there's more Facebook can do to help people celebrate and commemorate the lives of people they have lost," a spokeswoman told the BBC via email.

"We'll have more to share in the coming weeks and months."

'Shot in the dark'

Mr Berlin posted a video to YouTube "calling out to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook".

"You've been putting out these one-minute movies that everyone has been sharing," he said. "I think they're great."

image copyright Facebook image caption The Look Back videos show key moments from a person's time on Facebook

He went on to explain his son's death, and how he could not access his profile.

"All we want to do is see his movie. I know it's a shot in the dark but I don't care."

The clip was posted to link-sharing website Reddit where it gained a lot of support. Mr Berlin posted his son's obituary to allay concerns the clip may have been a hoax.

Local radio station Pix11 stepped in to put Mr Berlin in contact with Facebook.

Protected profiles

Facebook already offers a "memorialising" process for profiles of deceased users.

The service was introduced in 2009 after one of the social network's engineers lost a loved one and felt the existing measures were not sufficient.

Under the current set-up, family members can use the site's help centre to send links from newspapers or other sources confirming the news that someone has died.

Facebook told the BBC such processes were in place to ensure someone did not maliciously try to shut an account - and that there was an appeal process in place for the rare occasions when mistakes were made.

Memorialising means a user who has died will no longer appear alongside advertising, or in contextual messages - and friends will not be reminded of a person's birthday.

Facebook does not hand over full access to a person's account due to privacy concerns.

In the past, Facebook has come under criticism for displaying prompts to talk to people who were no longer alive.

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC