Facebook is allegedly working on using Artificial Intelligence to prevent painful reminders about dead friends. The new tool will prevent the upsetting problem of users receiving notifications about dead family and friends on the platform.

 

The company hopes to use this to stop the very painful experience of getting suggestions to invite dead people to an event or group. It will also stop birthday reminders too. Instead, tributes will appear separately on profiles. It will also keep the deceased’s timeline the way they left it.

 

Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, said they hope the platform “remains a place where the memory and spirit of loved ones can be celebrated and lived on.”

 

It must have been very disturbing a traumatic for users who have had to get such interaction notifications from dead friends. Some users also complained about feeling shocked and upset over it.

 

According to Facebook, it gave users the ability to put up a status that adds “remembering” to a person’s name. This, they said, they had done since 2009 when friends could also post messages on the post in memory of the deceased friend. It also added that over 30 million people do this every month on the platform.

 

 

Memories

A memorialised page, it will no longer bring up notifications about the person. However, for those whose friends have not yet memorialised their pages, Facebook intends to use AI to stop the notifications.

 

Accounts of deceased people will also now have separate “tributes” tabs. This is to allow people to leave condolences and memories. This should leave the person’s timeline intact.

 

Tributes to deceased users will also be moderated by their “Legacy” contacts. These are contacts designated to take over a person’s account in the event of their demise. They include a next of kin Facebook contact.

 

The Legacy contacts will moderate posts shared to the new tributes section. They will do this by changing tagging settings, edit who can post and see posts, and then remove tags too.

 

Users under 18 cannot nominate a legacy contact, but parents and guardians of deceased children can contact Facebook for access to their accounts.