Even though it is not uncommon to read false stories of peoples’ deaths on Facebook; in a weird turn of events, Facebook itself has started declaring people dead – when in fact they are not. A lot of Facebook users were greeted with a eulogy message when visiting the profiles of friends and family, while some found their own accounts memorialised. Even Mark Zuckerberg was declared dead on his Facebook page. The social media giant acknowledged the error after fixing it – saying that there was a ‘terrible error’.
People who have been memorialised by Facebook have the following written on top of their Facebook profile “Remembering Anne. We hope people who love Anne will find comfort in the things others share to remember and celebrate her life”.
The social network yesterday apologized and said it work as quickly as possible to correct the problem. While some people were obviously shocked, other users saw it as a missed opportunity to scare a few friends out, with one user, Danny Sullivan tweeting “Damn. I should have used Facebook Live to show how I was Facebook Dead”.
“For a brief period, a message meant for memorialised profiles was mistakenly posted to other accounts,” a Facebook spokesperson told AFP. “This was a terrible error that we have now fixed.”
The mistaken memorial notices contained links to forms that can be submitted to have people’s accounts at the leading social network modified into online memorials after they die.
Media reports have indicated that close to two million errant memorials were posted on profile pages, which we are certain made for a lot confusion, tears and shock. The problem seems to have been resolved by now, and Mark Zuckerberg is not dead on Facebook anymore.
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