Facebook Burt is considering unfriending the undead

When my Facebook page sends me a notice that a friend who died just made a new online friend, I get a little creeped out.

Death is the only reason I joined Facebook back in 2007. I didn't sign up to hunt down old girlfriends, make new business connections or even to let people I haven't talked to in 30 years know whenever "Burt is sleepy," "Burt is feeling good about the Cubs," "Burt is craving a bowl of clam chowder," "Burt is obdurate in his quest to make friends look up the meaning of obdurate" or "Burt is typing mindless updates on his Facebook page."

I joined solely so that when I had to write stories about horrific things, I could find the Facebook pages of the perpetrators and the victims of the horror, and send all their friends a note asking for comment.

I did almost succumb to the lure of typing up one of those "25 Random Things About Me" lists, but never posted this:

No. 1 - I put on my pants two legs at a time.

No. 2 - I sometimes mix up the numbers 2 and 5.

No. 3 - I don't finish tasks if I get bored.

No. 4 - My wife generally kicks me in Scrabble.

No. 5 - See No. 2.

No. 6-25 - See No. 3.

Maybe it's because our three sons are really into zombies these days (mostly going online to shoot zombies in video games with their friends who have Facebook pages), but I'm wondering how many people who are dead in real life still are among the undead communicating on Facebook.

"As for the specifics on numbers, due to privacy reasons, we are unable to provide this information," e-mails Facebook's Kathleen Loughlin, who responds to all my "dead people on Facebook" questions. "In the case of your friend, who added a friend a month after her death, I think what must have happened here is that someone (maybe a family member or close friend) had your friend's login credentials and was controlling the account."

I hope that's the explanation, instead of some Facebook application that lets dead people continue social networking from the great beyond. (Although, as my editor notes, it'd be fun to log onto Beethoven's page and see his status: "Ludwig is decomposing.")

I'm not sure what the afterlife holds for me, but I hope I am not damned to an eternity of responding to requests to send virtual cupcakes, buy online Humvees for a game called Safari Scrap or take disappointing "celebrity compatibility" quizzes that conclude I have more in common with Steve Buscemi than I do with Angelina Jolie.

"When it comes to our attention that a user has passed away, we put the profile in a Memorial State," Loughlin says, explaining how Facebook developed this concept in the wake of the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings in which a gunman shot and killed 32 people before taking his own life.

"In the Memorial State, certain profile sections and features are hidden from view to protect the privacy of the departed," Loughlin says. "In Memorial State, the account is given stronger privacy settings (only friends can see the profile), the person is removed from any groups and the status is taken away. "

If a loved one asks that a dead person's profile be taken off Facebook, the account is disabled by the Facebook User Operations team.

"The team investigates the report and once they verify that the account holder is deceased, they put the account in a Memorialized State," Loughlin explains. "We do not go actively looking for deceased profiles, but when we hear about them or come across them, we memorialize them."

Just as some people used to find comfort from leaving a dead loved one's voice on an answering machine, many like to visit dead friends' pages, or even "poke" them.

"We have found that a lot of users find Facebook as a place to grieve for loved ones who have passed away," Loughlin says. "In terms of official policy on removing someone as a friend who has passed away, we do not have a policy on this. Users are encouraged to do what feels right to them."

It doesn't feel right to me to have a dead friend's birthday pop up on my calendar every year. But this makes me realize another thing I can add to my "25 Random Things About Me" list: I just don't have it in me to "unfriend" a dead friend.