Jed was interviewed by Center for Digital Ethics & Policy in an article called “RIP Trolling“.
“For many individuals it’s about connecting with other people who are experiencing loss,” explains Jed Brubaker, a digital identity researcher who focuses on death, social media and post-mortem identity.
Facebook, of course, is also a popular destination for commiseration. After receiving proof of death, the social media site will turn a user’s profile into a memorial page. Brubaker studied interactions on these pages in a paper called “Beyond the Grave: Facebook as a site for the expansion of death and mourning.”
“There’s a type of exposure that a Facebook profile creates that is quite new to the bereaved,” he says. “There used to be a specific time and a place where we came together to grieve. It did a nice job of consolidating those interactions and also gave us norms for what was appropriate and not appropriate in this setting.”