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25 February 2009

What NOT to do on Facebook.... [More:]
So, I had this friend (he died a few years ago and I am friends with his widow.)

An old friend of theirs in another state, far far away has a facebook account. All well and good. (Also I should state for the record that this person and myself had not friended each other, but he is a facebook friend of the widow, as am I.)

This old friend of theirs, in a different state far far away, decided to post a small picture album on Facebook of pictures he had of my deceased friend. So far, so good.

I had just gotten off the phone with the widow this morning and was logging onto facebook when lo and behold, in my newsfeed, pops up a couple of pictures from this album. Even tho I am not a direct friend of the poster but I am a friend of a friend. Since I love and miss my dead friend, I wanted to see the album so I clicked on the pics. Some of the pics I had seen. Then all of a sudden here is a pic of a totally naked man, (from behind, no frontal nudity) snowboarding down a hill. The implications of the photo were that it was my friend. Now if you knew this dead friend of mine, it would occur to you that at some point in his life he might very well have done such a thing. It certainly looked like him (altho let the record show I never saw him in any other state than fully clothed.)

I'm horrified. The widow has way more than average the number of Facebook friends and is very well known in certain circles, as was her hubby when alive. So I called her, left a message, then messaged the guy (I had met him once, at the funeral) and kindly mentioned to him, that. dude. this is the internet. The internet. Never. Forgets. And if my friend the widow felt compelled to kill him, I'd probably be obligated to help her hide the body.

Well, long story short, it was NOT my dead friend's naked tukkus I had seen, but instead a joke postcard from that certain region of the country far, far away. A joke. The guy wrote me, apologised and said he'd messed up when setting the privacy settings.

Meanwhile I just got off the phone with the widow who has been getting panicky emails and panicky phone calls from literally all over the nation and probably a foreign country or so freaking out on her behalf.

Anyhow, that rule about not posting anything you wouldn't want the world to see???

Probably a real good one.

Knowing my friend, he is up in heaven rotfl. Particularly at my gullibility because so help me I could actually seeing him doing such a thing.
This is why I don't facebook at all.
posted by Doohickie 25 February | 22:36
I think it's partly dissonant social expectations within your friends' circle. The widow has a different understanding of what's appropriate and the panicky callers have a different one. The saving grace is you can definitely set your privacy settings to not let others see photos tagged of "you". Of course if they have access to the photo because some other friend is tagged then they'll still see you.
posted by Firas 25 February | 23:24
FaceAssbook or maybe Facepalmbook.
posted by arse_hat 25 February | 23:32
I think I neglected to mention my dead friend was in Christian ministry. Which makes this whole thing both more horrifying and more hilarious.
posted by bunnyfire 26 February | 07:48
After my father died recently, I got on his computer and opened up his facebook page. He had about 60 people waiting to be "re-friended" by him so they could see his page. I clicked "accept" on every single one of them before I realized that they'd all just gotten an email from "beyond the grave."

It's the kind of thing that would make my dad laugh.
posted by ColdChef 26 February | 08:01
Best. Cat. Chair. Evah. || If you suffer from SAD, come stand in my bathroom for a while.

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