What happens when Facebook dies?

Of course it isn’t a question of whether Facebook will die – only when. It might happen slowly as users gradually migrate to other social media platforms, or suddenly in the wake of some technological or financial meltdown. Either way, Zuckerberg will probably be safe with his millions (billions?!). But what will happen to the digital acres we have tended with such care.

At one level it’s a basic question of data – are my personal artifacts safe? What will happen to the megabytes that make up that picture of me and my mom at Niagara Falls in 2007, or that conversation with a friend in Vancouver back in 2010? Will it all simply vanish? Be sold off to a social media competitor – an estate sale of framed photos and vintage movie posters and so many bric-a-brac bytes?

What happens when Facebook dies?

But this is also a question of our identity. With the loss of those carefully maintained digital landscapes, do we lose a part of ourselves? And if so, what part of ourselves will disappear? Or perhaps this is a better question: Is there anything of great value on Facebook, whose loss we might or should mourn? Continue reading →