Funeral pictures on your Timeline

[SamiHami]

Photos of the wake and mourners at the funeal are fine but no coffins. I once got a nasty surprise developing photos when the roll contained close up photos of the woman's dead MIL in her coffin. That was part of my job but it's not something I want on my newsfeed.

 there is nothing "fine" about posting pics of the mourners unless each one has given their permission. I would be furious if someone posted pictures of me under such circumstances. People should be allowed to attend a funeral and express their grief without worrying someone is going to post pictures of them all over social media. It is a gross invasion of privacy

[JenJay]

I've tried playing around with what's checked and unchecked in my "want to see" settings and still ended up getting stuff I didn't want. Now I go all the way to the bottom of the list and click "unsubscribe" and I don't get any status updates, photos, links, etc. that the person posts. It doesn't unfriend us or send any kind of notice to the person as far as I know.

[bah12]

This is a situation where you need to know your audience.  It's going to be completely disturbing for a lot of people to wake up to a picture of a dead body mixed in with their LOLcats and ecards.  Kind of like when you're scrolling through your newsfeed and one of your activist friends has decided that they need to share a Sarah McLaughlin-level animal abuse picture to support the local animal shelter.  And when you're dealing with an environment where you're sharing with your immediate family, your extended family, your closest friends, your acquaintances, and maybe your coworkers, well, it's just not going to be appropriate for everyone.

But that does happen quite frequently on fb, along with pictures of sick babies, domestic violence PSAs, etc.  If somebody decides they are seeing things they don't want to then they are free to block or defriend.

I agree and have done just that.  But just because it's Facebook doesn't mean that what people do on their own walls can't be considered rude or inappropriate.  I think people have agreed in the past that it's rude to vaguebook and rude to post things on your wall directly insulting the people who are going to see it.  Sure, you can't police it, aside from defriending or hiding someone, but that doesn't mean the behavior is any less inappropriate.

Edited: Just tonight a friend of mine posted a picture of a child who had allegedly been abused to his newsfeed.  Popped up in the middle of everyone else's normal daily posting.  The next time I see him, I may well call him on it because, come on, IF the story attached to the picture is true, not everyone on his friends list is in a position to be on the lookout for the person who allegedly committed the abuse, so they just got slapped in the face with an extremely disturbing picture because he was too lazy to be selective in who he shared with.

Actually, I don't think vaguebooking is rude...I think it's annoying and a cry for attention, but not rude. 

As for the culture/this is the US thing...that's just it.  This is the US.  There are a million different cultures in this country.  I don't think it's legitimate to argue that generic US cultural norms apply to FB postings just because the majority of the people that see it reside in this country.  I also don't think it's necessarily considered "not ok" to take pictures of the deceased in our culture.  I know several people who do it and put the pictures in photo albums, or boxes as momentos of a loved one.  While I haven't seen these pop up on my newsfeed, I don't think there's a "right/wrong" answer here.  When I don't like what a FB friend posts, I either hide their feed or delete them from my list...and I've done this with perfectly nice people that I remain friends with IRL. 

This comes down to "everyone uses FB differently" and I just don't think that it's ok to expect that everyone is going to protect you from seeing things you don't like, aren't disturbing/shocking, etc.

[violinp]

Photos of the wake and mourners at the funeal are fine but no coffins. I once got a nasty surprise developing photos when the roll contained close up photos of the woman's dead MIL in her coffin. That was part of my job but it's not something I want on my newsfeed.

 there is nothing "fine" about posting pics of the mourners unless each one has given their permission. I would be furious if someone posted pictures of me under such circumstances. People should be allowed to attend a funeral and express their grief without worrying someone is going to post pictures of them all over social media. It is a gross invasion of privacy

I quite agree. I don't want people I'm not connected to to see me bawling my eyes out.

[NotTheNarcissist]

While personally I find it in poor taste & would not do it, I acknowledge the person has the right to post those pictures.

[Twik]

Well, we're not arguing rights, we're arguing etiquette, and, I think, consideration.

While almost anything can disturb someone, the idea of death is disturbing to all of us, to varying degrees. Therefore, it would be considerate, and I believe, polite, to avoid springing pictures of the deceased onto others without knowing if it would disturb them or not. I think would apply to other common triggers of distress, such as pictures of large spiders, or snakes. I might be really interested in such things, but I need to remember that not everyone is, and it is a kindness not to upset the people you are trying to communicate with.

[Bluenomi]

Photos of the wake and mourners at the funeal are fine but no coffins. I once got a nasty surprise developing photos when the roll contained close up photos of the woman's dead MIL in her coffin. That was part of my job but it's not something I want on my newsfeed.

 there is nothing "fine" about posting pics of the mourners unless each one has given their permission. I would be furious if someone posted pictures of me under such circumstances. People should be allowed to attend a funeral and express their grief without worrying someone is going to post pictures of them all over social media. It is a gross invasion of privacy

Sorry, I ment under the usual permissions etc but didn't think I needed to spell that out since that wasn't the question.

[thedudeabides]

This is a situation where you need to know your audience.  It's going to be completely disturbing for a lot of people to wake up to a picture of a dead body mixed in with their LOLcats and ecards.  Kind of like when you're scrolling through your newsfeed and one of your activist friends has decided that they need to share a Sarah McLaughlin-level animal abuse picture to support the local animal shelter.  And when you're dealing with an environment where you're sharing with your immediate family, your extended family, your closest friends, your acquaintances, and maybe your coworkers, well, it's just not going to be appropriate for everyone.

But that does happen quite frequently on fb, along with pictures of sick babies, domestic violence PSAs, etc.  If somebody decides they are seeing things they don't want to then they are free to block or defriend.

I agree and have done just that.  But just because it's Facebook doesn't mean that what people do on their own walls can't be considered rude or inappropriate.  I think people have agreed in the past that it's rude to vaguebook and rude to post things on your wall directly insulting the people who are going to see it.  Sure, you can't police it, aside from defriending or hiding someone, but that doesn't mean the behavior is any less inappropriate.

Edited: Just tonight a friend of mine posted a picture of a child who had allegedly been abused to his newsfeed.  Popped up in the middle of everyone else's normal daily posting.  The next time I see him, I may well call him on it because, come on, IF the story attached to the picture is true, not everyone on his friends list is in a position to be on the lookout for the person who allegedly committed the abuse, so they just got slapped in the face with an extremely disturbing picture because he was too lazy to be selective in who he shared with.

Actually, I don't think vaguebooking is rude...I think it's annoying and a cry for attention, but not rude. 

As for the culture/this is the US thing...that's just it.  This is the US.  There are a million different cultures in this country.  I don't think it's legitimate to argue that generic US cultural norms apply to FB postings just because the majority of the people that see it reside in this country.  I also don't think it's necessarily considered "not ok" to take pictures of the deceased in our culture.  I know several people who do it and put the pictures in photo albums, or boxes as momentos of a loved one.  While I haven't seen these pop up on my newsfeed, I don't think there's a "right/wrong" answer here.  When I don't like what a FB friend posts, I either hide their feed or delete them from my list...and I've done this with perfectly nice people that I remain friends with IRL. 

This comes down to "everyone uses FB differently" and I just don't think that it's ok to expect that everyone is going to protect you from seeing things you don't like, aren't disturbing/shocking, etc.

I agree with all of that.  I'm just saying that that doesn't make posting those things appropriate.

[bah12]

Well, we're not arguing rights, we're arguing etiquette, and, I think, consideration.

While almost anything can disturb someone, the idea of death is disturbing to all of us, to varying degrees. Therefore, it would be considerate, and I believe, polite, to avoid springing pictures of the deceased onto others without knowing if it would disturb them or not. I think would apply to other common triggers of distress, such as pictures of large spiders, or snakes. I might be really interested in such things, but I need to remember that not everyone is, and it is a kindness not to upset the people you are trying to communicate with.

I don't think this approach is practical.  First, death doesn't disturb everyone.  I think that you could argue that graphic pictures of death may disturb most people, but like I said, I know many people who keep and look at pictures of the deceased at funerals or viewings.  The same with large spiders/snakes.  I wouldn't even think twice about posting a picture of those...for instance, if a snake was in my yard, I might take a picture and post "look what was in my yard!"

I think that there may be a few things out there that we could reasonably say would be distressing to pretty much everyone...and I would think it's reasonable that pictures of abuse, blood, and other graphic images would fall into that category, but not of someone that looks like their sleeping in a coffin, snakes, or spiders.

Also, FWIW, I wouldn't actually like seeing a picture of a dead person even if it did look like they were sleeping.  But I don't think it's blanketly wrong for someone to put a picture like that on FB.

[MariaE]

POD to bah. I agree with everything she wrote.

[Starr]

I disagree - I think most people I know would find it very upsetting to have an image of a dead body unexpectedly come up on their computer screen.  I think of it this way - if the image is something the local news station would have to give a "viewer discretion" warning for before they showed it on the evening news, I think it's only polite to extend the same courtesy to your Facebook friends.  On the evening news, when they show funerals for distinguished people in the community or accident victims, they will often show the mourners (I hope with permission!) or the flowers and closed casket.  However, they never show bodies, and when they show other types of graphic images (abuse victims, etc.) they give a warning for sensitive viewers to look away/turn the channel for a moment.

I agree that it may not be upsetting to see your own relative at peace in a coffin (or it may be for some) but chances are many of the people viewing the FB pictures didn't know the deceased well.  Also, not every person I've ever seen at a funeral looks like they are sleeping - some are quite obviously not just asleep, and the fact that the person is in a coffin shatters the fantasy that they are sleeping as well.

I used to read a woman's blog who had a daughter with cancer.  The daughter lost her battle with cancer, and her mom wanted to show some final pictures of her on the blog.  She posted a warning at the top of the page for that post letting people know not to scroll further if they would rather not see the pictures (and she said she totally understood some people may not want to remember the daughter that way).

[bah12]

Let's put it another way.  I know a lot of people (I mean a lot) that are afraid of heights.  Is it rude or unacceptable to put pictures and videos of people that are up high?  Or that show how high it is from their viewpoint?  I get squeemish at the sight of scurring mice.  I hate them and looking at them is disturbing.  I know several people who feel the same way.  Is it rude for people to post pictures of mice without warning me?

I've seen images of dead people on tv without warning.  Whether it's been "fake" like in a movie or a tv show, or even in newspapers/news (we can warnings if the pictures show death, or babies, etc, but not more than that).  I hate seeing those images regardless of the medium, but again, it doesn't matter what I think...or even what a majority of the US thinks.  People taking pictures of the deceased is not uncommon.  There may be a lot of people out there who don't like it, but it's not uncommon.

This technological age has made our private lives much more open.  People can choose to share whatever they want about their private lives, and in turn, we can choose whether or not we want to be shared with.  But, what is not so easy, is protecting ourselves from accidently seeing something that we don't like.  But, really, that's life.  It's no different than me seeing something disturbing IRL, it's just that FB has increased that possibility.  I feel that sometimes we're going to come across things that make us uncomfortable.  That doesn't make it rude.  Shoving a picture in your face and forcing you to look at it is rude.  Posting it their own wall is not.  If your (general) "friend" is consistenly posting things you don't like, then there is a good reason to hide their feed.   

[CakeEater]

Let's put it another way.  I know a lot of people (I mean a lot) that are afraid of heights.  Is it rude or unacceptable to put pictures and videos of people that are up high?  Or that show how high it is from their viewpoint?  I get squeemish at the sight of scurring mice.  I hate them and looking at them is disturbing.  I know several people who feel the same way.  Is it rude for people to post pictures of mice without warning me?

I've seen images of dead people on tv without warning.  Whether it's been "fake" like in a movie or a tv show, or even in newspapers/news (we can warnings if the pictures show death, or babies, etc, but not more than that).  I hate seeing those images regardless of the medium, but again, it doesn't matter what I think...or even what a majority of the US thinks.  People taking pictures of the deceased is not uncommon.  There may be a lot of people out there who don't like it, but it's not uncommon.

This technological age has made our private lives much more open.  People can choose to share whatever they want about their private lives, and in turn, we can choose whether or not we want to be shared with.  But, what is not so easy, is protecting ourselves from accidently seeing something that we don't like.  But, really, that's life.  It's no different than me seeing something disturbing IRL, it's just that FB has increased that possibility.  I feel that sometimes we're going to come across things that make us uncomfortable.  That doesn't make it rude.  Shoving a picture in your face and forcing you to look at it is rude.  Posting it their own wall is not.  If your (general) "friend" is consistenly posting things you don't like, then there is a good reason to hide their feed.

I disagree. TV shows do have warnings - they have a ratings system that distinguishes between all sorts of things that the movie/V show contains. And we expect the TV news to have images of accidents etc, and we don't watch if those sorts of things disturb us.

Posting something on their wall is like shoving a picture in my face, because their wall shows up in my newsfeed.

I think there are a number of things that people shouldn't post on their pages because of the widespread dislike of them. I think bodies in coffins are included on that list. Others include; toddler's first poo, surgery or post surgery scars, woman giving birth, etc. We don't discuss those things in detail, or show everyone we know photos of them as a general rule, so I don't think they should be on your FB page.

I don't think mice are as widespread a taboo.

[Sharnita]

I would say that one is just as likely to see something unsettling on fb as on the news.  On any given day I see pictures relating to animal abuse, domestic violence, sick babies, war - just like the news it is a look at your own risk proposition.  If you want to be certain of the safety of fluffy bunny images, a calendar is probably a better bet.

[bah12]

Perhaps FB should come with a warning too "Warning: not everyone thinks like you or uses this site like you. There is a chance that you may not be completely comfortable with everything you see or read. View at your own risk."
I just think that's pretty obvious...