Mentioning the dead

Irecently received a message from a smartphone application that was sold for $11 billion, i.e. more than the estimated cost of reprising the systematic devastation and destruction of Syria and Iraq. This application actually makes us look as if we have turned into a post office where we classify, sort out and forward the mail we receive from friends and family on a daily basis to other groups of friends and family who are not less important to us.

We enjoy sending information, songs, images, jokes, wisdoms and things that we deep within expect would appeal to the taste of those we forward or re-tweet those messages to. Such messages even include the way we express condolences or mention the dead ones. Some people may say that the deceased used to ‘communicate’ with everyone and that he was always ‘online’ and never ‘ignored’ or ‘blocked’ anybody. That he never joined a group and remained silent to hunt things he likes to forward to others.

Moreover, the deceased was ‘welcomed’ in various groups and had never annoyed anybody with ‘comments’. He was generous with ‘likes’ and always made ‘share’ to the rich and ‘tag’ to the poor. He died while exploring Facebook. How happy he was as he died with all his friends around him. Condolences were sent from all over the world from people he knew and others he never knew.

We can say that even if the website has a market value, this will pass down to heirs especially since Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts are often considered sources of income, be that legal or illegal. This period in mankind history will remain unprecedented in terms of violating privacy as digital data remains ambiguous except to specialized people. We can even say that as long as we have nothing to hide, we will have a new concept of privacy.