Oops, I?m dead: what to do if Facebook thinks you?re popping up daisies

It might be a little disconcerting, to say the least, to log into your Facebook account and find that Facebook thinks you are dead. That is, unfortunately, exactly what happened to Facebook user?Brett Millet, who?posted about the problem?on the question-and-answer site?StackExchange.

Evidently someone ? and it would have to be one of his Facebook friends ? reported him as deceased, using?this Facebook form:

While it may seem like a funny prank to some, reporting a Facebook user deceased is actually a fairly horrific thing to do. Imagine the shock of your friends checking you out on Facebook and seeing, to their horror, that you are presumably dead. Or, God forbid, your mother or another close relative.

You would think that Facebook would do some level of due diligence before taking such a drastic step, but that allegedly did not happen, at least in Millet?s case:

?Apparently, it?s pretty easy to memorialize someone?s Facebook profile,? he posted. ?I am greeted with the following message?after?entering my?valid?and?correct?username and password:?

Account Inaccessible

This account is in a special memorial state. If you have any questions or concerns, please visit the Help Center for further information.

I find it hard to believe that there are no safeguards in place to prevent this from happening.?The simplest, of course, would be an email or a text to the affected person, checking for a response. Another option would be simply waiting for a time to see if the person logs in and posts anything. Additionally, Facebook could simply, upon the seemingly dead user?s next login, request clarification.

If this story is accurate ? VentureBeat is making inquiries right now with both Facebook PR and the affected user ? Millet seems to have regained access to his account.

One recommended process in the StackExchange thread was to?report a violation of Facebook terms, which enables users who cannot access their accounts to log in again.

However, it appears that Facebook has a special page already set up for users who find themselves in precisely this situation, and that?s the other advice given in the discussion thread. This is the page here:?My Personal Account is in a Special Memorialized State.

The fact that Facebook has a page set up for specifically this purpose would seem to indicate that Millet is not alone in his predicament: this unfortunate situation has happened before, and often enough to require its own page at Facebook. Here, users can prove that they are not, in fact, dead, and regain access to their account.

As mentioned above, VentureBeat is reaching out to both Millet and Facebook and will update this story as we receive more details.

Image credit:?ShutterStock

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