Not so long ago Facebook turned 10 and in order to commemorate this milestone the company showed off its data mining prowess by making “Look Back” videos for its users. The video was basically an amalgamation of popular photos, stories and posts that gave users a glimpse into the past, particularly the kind of life they lived back then. The social network has announced that it will now create Look Back videos at the request of users who have lost a family member, provided the deceased person used to be on Facebook.
Facebook is also making a slight change to the way it maintains accounts of users who have passed away. Previously once an account was memorialized, its visibility was changed to friends only. This meant that no one else could see the account or associated content if they didn’t exist in the friends list prior to the account being memorialized. Now Facebook will maintain visibility as-in, this means that people will be able to view the account as well as the content based on the privacy settings applied by the user before their passing. Facebook says that it decided to take requests for Look Back videos after the one it made for John Berlin, who asked the social network if it could make a video for his son Jesse who passed away in 2012, and that the request “touched the hearts of everyone who heard it, including ours.” Requests for similar videos can be made here.
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