In April 2013 Dolores Pereira Coutinho, a mother from Brazil won a battle to have her dead daughter’s Facebook page removed. Since the death of her daughter, for no less than 7 months the claimant persistently requested Facebook to delete her daughter’s Facebook account but the social media giant simply ignore all her requests, sending her automated responses in reply.
Having been ignored, the devastated mother had to resort to legal proceedings against Facebook, presumably at a great expense.
At one point Facebook turned the privacy of the deceased young girl to private, but still it deprived her grieving family from having their wishes to have the account closed respected.
A Brazilian judge eventually ordered Facebook to close the deceased girl’s account or face imprisonment.
Having branded itself as champion of communication, with a mission statement that declares the organisation’s aim is to make the world more open and connected’, Facebook is yet to lead by examples.
Earlier last year, Facebook decided to withdraw its telephone support line and replaced it with a series of automated messages, often taking its amused and frustrated users round and round in circles with no real solutions and without any ability to communicate with a real human being. Facebook basically cannot stand the idea of having to speak to its customers in person.
Is Facebook a friendly, helpful and ethical organisation or is it just a corporation that hides its real intentions behind smoke screens and double mirrors?
Our filing cabinet is packed with similar stories. You might want to seriously consider sharing your Facebook account details and password with a close member of your family, and they might want to do the same with you. This advice goes against Facebook’s own published recommendation for account security so follow it or not at your own peril.
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