I know that many people love the internet and some seem to post everything online. I’m curious what people think of posting traumatic events. If you witness a car crash and someone is killed, do you quickly post it online so that everyone knows? Usually police and newspapers wait until family is notified, what about the general public?
Finding out that a friend or family member passed away is difficult enough. Would it bother you extra to find out your sibling or parent passed away when you woke up one morning and saw it on Facebook? Or does it really matter? Either way they’re gone, does it matter how you find out about it?
How would any of us know the name of some stranger killed in an accident until we saw it published in a paper or on the news? How many of us just happen to see someone we know personally killed in an accident unless we too are in the same accident? Very damn few.
I have posted threads about family members dying, but I haven’t published their names. I have also posted things, flattering or not, about people I know IRL, but I haven’t published their names either. I am probably more worried about exposing my own RW identity as these other people, or perhaps concerned about getting my real ID associated with disparaging remarks about someone else. I’m not sure that the question of revealing myself can be cleanly separated from that of revealing the IDs of other people in my life. That makes me a lot different from a professional journalist – aside from the fact that relatively few journalists would be assigned to report on their own friends and family members.
A HS friend of mine I hadn’t been in touch with committed suicide a couple of years ago by lying down across the railroad tracks. I found out because another friend saw it on the breaking news section of the local newspaper’s website. We both (along with about 2,000 other people - he was an immensely well-liked grade school teacher) went to the wake.
I talked to his mom, who was extremely pissed off that the newspaper published his identity so quickly that the phone at their house started ringing while the police were there to ask them to come identify their son’s body. Sheesh, people, have some respect!
Interesting ou should bring this up. I know someone that just posted all the details of an extended family member’s suicide and how it ruined christmas eve.
People who take it upon themselves to inform the internet about the death of anyone must feel very impotent. I don’t believe claims made by them unless a link to an independent, credible source that confirms the story is included. Online, anonymous people lie about the RL death of others so often in online games and social media that I find most unverified reports suspicious.
Usually I don’t believe much of what I read on the internet either, but it was my husband’s sister posting that his other sister had gone to heaven, and that nobody should comment on her post as they should respect the family and Facebook isn’t the place for comments. The thing is, it was upsetting to have that be the first thing I saw online that morning. It was early am, it’s how my husband and I found out. Couldn’t she have waited a couple hours after her sister died? Better yet, a couple days?
That’s horrifying. I thought that newspapers always waited longer.
She posted on Facebook before she called her brother?? Seriously?
When I read your first post, I thought of a family member like a cousin or something finding out about somebody’s death through Facebook, and that would be bad enough. Who doesn’t call all the immediate family members before getting on social media?
I assumed that someone who did not know the deceased posted the “news” with the same lack of concern as they might also announce spotting a living celebrity. To me, it’s unjustified considering the potential shock it could cause family members.
I don’t think family members should use FB to announce a death, either. But family have more right to do it than a total stranger.
I hate FB, it’s the government’s latest mass public spying method.
The mother of one of my daughter’s classmates that I am “friends” with on facebook wrote last month “I am about to do something that no parent should ever have to do”. Two hours later, she wrote her ex husband had died in a routine surgery and she had just told her children that he passed.
I found that very strange. I can understand posting of his death after notifying the children but to post that you are about to do something knowing you’ll receive multiple “what’s wrong” “what is it” “Hope everything is okay” seems very odd to me.
You know you can control ‘who sees what’ on FB, don’t you? :rolleyes:
It’s a little trick called, ‘If you don’t want everybody and their brother to know it, don’t post it’.
With that said, FB does have its uses.
When my Dad passed away last November, there were a lot of people that I wouldn’t/couldn’t have notified of his death, if it hadn’t been for FB.
I called as many family members as I could before resorting to FB, but there were extended family members that I didn’t have or had lost the or they had changed their #'s.
Granted, I probably could have spent hours on the telephone calling this, that and the other family members and reacquired their # and notified them that way, FB just made it that much easier.
Also, a signifigant # of my Dad’s social network of friends, acquaintences, work contacts and the like, would have been close to impossible to notify. Even more so, seeing as how a lot of people these days don’t read the newspaper.
Another ‘bonus’ was the fact that FB reached a much larger percentage of the population, than a newspaper obituary would have, and do you have any idea how much it costs to put a listing in the obituaries of a major newspaper?
Trust me, it AIN’T cheap and it’s only going to ‘run’ for the length of time that you pay (dearly) for.
I don’t know about saving money on the obituary, but FB is a good way to let a large family know about big news fast. Doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, or whatever. If you have something to get out there, FB is the way to go.
That being said, there will be a certain amount of butthurt from people who believe that they should be notified about such things personally. IME, these tend to be older people who don’t always understand that FB is part of a shift in etiquette, and drama kings/queens who refuse to believe they’re not the center of the universe.
It’s also important to know that some news isn’t necessarily yours to share. Before you repost something, find out if it’s OK. The initial announcement may have been restricted to a few people until others could be notified through other means, and your desire to spread the news may create other or bigger problems.
I don’t use FB and I don’t know if my sister does but she’s been called the “Town Crier” ever since she was a kid. She delights in being the one to bring you sad news, with her own glurgy editorial spin in many cases. (“So-and-so’s grandfather died the same day that Whosit’s baby was born. I believe that when one person dies, another is born.” :rolleyes: ) I usually get it from a phone call, and I can always tell what’s coming by her tone of voice. If she’s on FB, I can see her doing the same thing.
My point is that some people just *lurve *being the bringer of tidings, especially someone else’s tidings. I don’t know if it’s impotence or just the need to be the one who knows first.
Traditional newspaper obituary listings are expensive, and the longer you want the listing to remain in the paper, the more it’s going to cost.
I agree that that ‘some news isn’t necessarily yours to share’. But as far as ‘reposting’ goes, once the info has been posted into the public domain (ie: FB) I think that it’s generally OK to repost, said info. YMMV
And just for the record, I think that a traditional obituary listing should be purchased, before resorting to FB.
I disagree that reposting is OK, especially with earth-shattering news because that’s an excellent way to start drama. You don’t know that the original status update was intended for public consumption; there may be a special list set up just to include certain people to avoid hurting others’ feelings or because the person whose news it is isn’t ready to tell the world yet, but is OK with telling a few people.
I have a story to illustrate this. A few years ago, a good friend of mine became pregnant with her first baby. She set up a list on Facebook for a handful of friends because she wanted to wait to tell her family on her terms. A well-meaning mutual friend reposted the status update with a great deal of enthusiasm, where it was discovered by some of the people who our friend wanted to wait to tell. Those people got rather upset about being excluded from the original announcement even though the prospective mother wanted to tell them personally when the time was right. Much drama ensued that took several months to settle.
My point is this. Facebook may be great for notifying a lot of people quickly, and it’s a great way to make sure that only certain people are told. If there is a temptation to repost something, ask yourself “If this were about me, would I want the world to know?” Then ask if it’s OK to repost and respect that person’s wishes.
I can see the point you’re trying to make, and I shall take the blame for not being clearer.
When I made this statement, “once the info has been posted into the public domain (ie: FB) I think that it’s generally OK to repost” I should have been a little more ‘expansive’, instead of assuming that it would be recognized by one and all that there is a huge difference between a ‘public post’ and a personal message (even on FB).
I also think that your friend should have stated in their message, ‘This is NOT public knowledge, and do NOT wish it to be treated as such.’
