Öhman, CJ;
Watson, D;
(2019)
Are the dead taking over Facebook? A Big Data approach to the future of death online.
Big Data & Society
, 6
(1)
10.1177/2053951719842540.
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Abstract
We project the future accumulation of profiles belonging to deceased Facebook users. Our analysis suggests that a minimum of 1.4 billion users will pass away before 2100 if Facebook ceases to attract new users as of 2018. If the network continues expanding at current rates, however, this number will exceed 4.9 billion. In both cases, a majority of the profiles will belong to non-Western users. In discussing our findings, we draw on the emerging scholarship on digital preservation and stress the challenges arising from curating the profiles of the deceased. We argue that an exclusively commercial approach to data preservation poses important ethical and political risks that demand urgent consideration. We call for a scalable, sustainable, and dignified curation model that incorporates the interests of multiple stakeholders.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Are the dead taking over Facebook? A Big Data approach to the future of death online |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/2053951719842540 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951719842540 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Creative Commons CC-BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
| Keywords: | Death online, digital afterlife, mortality, ethics, digital preservation, Facebook |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Statistical Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10118987 |
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