WORLD TECHNOLOGY: The dead may outnumber the living on facebook by 2098

Facebook could become the world's biggest virtual graveyard by the end of the century, a statistician claims.

The social network has around 1.5bn users around the world, but by 2098 the number of dead users could outnumber the living.

This is due to plateauing numbers of new users, and Facebook's policy of not automatically deleting the profiles of the dead.
The prediction was made by statistician Hachem Sadikki, from the University of Massachusetts.

Close to one million Facebook users are expected to die this year alone - up from 385,000 in 2010 when Facebook had a much smaller user base.

Facebook's current policy means that when a user dies, their page is automatically turned into a memorial.

The only way to delete the page is to have someone login using their password and delete it.

Given that most people do not share their password at all, it is unlikely that most people will be able to close the account of a dead loved one.

The problem can often be upsetting - with some dead people still appear as having birthdays in users' news feeds and alerts.

Facebook has started to ask people to appoint a 'Legacy Contact' before they die.

The contact has the power to write one last post after a person's death, as well as updating their cover and profile photo.

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