Who owns your footprint after you die? Is it big tech companies or the loved ones you’ve left behind? Access and ownership cause unintended consequences that shift societal norms and behaviors in online spaces. Mourning is mediated and managed in different social spaces. Are you prepared for the inevitable and will you take a deletionist or preservationist stance? What is the long-term impact on the bereaved when third parties control technology platforms and your data, make the rules, govern who has access, and how the data is presented? Deletion of the deceased online footprint on social networks and email accounts is seen as a second loss by families and creates a new form of anticipatory grief. Putting too much weight on technology could develop a phantom of personhood that immediate grief could cause.

Ginger Liu is the founder of ⁠Ginger Media & Entertainment,⁠ a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media, and an ⁠author,⁠ journalist, ⁠artist,⁠ and filmmaker. Listen to the ⁠Podcast⁠.

⁠https://www.buymeacoffee.com/gliuphoto⁠