It's not as clear cut as you're making it sound, there are a wide variety of opinions about how much a person's right to privacy extends beyond their death.
There may be different opinions but legal and customs shows that (in most jurisdictions), unless the deceased has made legal arrangements otherwise, their property is inherit by next of kin, including letters, diaries, etc. Why would content on Facebook be any different?
Because in the modern age, electronic messages are partly like letters or diaries (which would be passed on to next of kin) and partly like phone calls or in-person conversations (which would not be passed on to next of kin).
How could you pass phonecalls or conversations unless they are being recorded? (Wait, are they being recorded?! /s)
I mean, I understand that some people think that our relationships to phones and digital world somehow are deeper/more-private than any other medium we had before...
But I'm pretty sure people felt that diaries and love letters were pretty private before Facebook or Bell's invention.
Phone companies werent willingly storing our "content" to profit from it. They were storing calls because of court orders.
Facebook is storing our data for posterity and I have a right to request Facebook to rid/edit that data (even if it's just marking it as "deleted") and think my next of kin should inherit the same rights I had over that data.
It does make me wonder, however, about the case of a psychiatrist or psychoanalyst who keeps paper notes on what his private patients have spoken about, and then dies suddenly in an accident together with his immediate family, so his next of kin and heir turns out to be a distant cousin, who happens to be an irresponsible teenage drug addict, say. Could anything be done to block the transfer of those paper notes in a case like that?
Perhaps a self-employed psychiatrist ought to have appointed a law firm as their executor and left instructions that patient notes should be destroyed rather than transfered to the next of kin, but if they'd forgotten to do that?
Doctor-patient privilege applies even after death, and while I couldn't easily find anything online, my assumption is that there's a process in place to handle scenarios like this so that patient data doesn't end up in unauthorized hands.
I've not heard of "doctor-patient privilege". Is that a US thing?
I was thinking of a private practitioner of complementary medicine, who might not be officially qualified or officially registered or officially anything at all, at least in England, where professions are not usually regulated. I'm fairly certain privacy would nevertheless be expected...
I've just asked someone who knows a bit more about English law than me. Apparently there's a common-law tort of breach of confidence, which would probably prevent an heir from revealing what's in the (pseudo)therapist's notes and might allow someone to get an injunction to stop the papers from being inherited in the first place. Interestingly, data protection probably wouldn't have much to do with this hypothetical case, nor with the hypothetical case in which a random person finds a box of confidential notes/letters in a hedge.
There is a "HIPPA"[0] law that is often referenced in the US when seeking medical services. Presumably it really only applies to interstate insurers, but is often believed to "protect" some information from being shared without a "patient's" consent.
>Right are a completely arbitrary construction of organized society so it's strange to suggest there are any absolute rules that govern 'rights.'
Are you familiar with the United States Declaration of Independence [0]?
>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It seems to me that 'rights' could exist without an 'organized society'. But, so far, I don't think any 'organized societies' really recognize 'rights of a dead person' (chiefly, I think, because there is no longer a 'person' to have rights).
Do you know of a law that grants rights to dead persons?
Some states (Florida and California, I believe) have laws prohibiting release of photos of corpses -- granting the dead a limited right to privacy. Laws prohibiting the disturbance/mistreatment/abuse of corpses are common, but not universal.
I highly doubt California has such a law. It would not be constitutional[0] if it did:
>SEC. 2. (a) Every person may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of this right. A law may not restrain or abridge liberty of speech or press.
Also of interest to this thread is:
>SECTION 1. All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.
How does a dead person enjoy life and liberty? Acquire, possess, protect property?
Some of the provisions in health safety code prohibit disturbance of remains, except where specifically authorized. [1] There are other sections that require the written wishes of the deceased regarding the remains to be followed without undue delay if they are clear and properly funded.
Upon further looking, I can't find anything to back up my claim on photos. There have been various efforts to provide these from time to time, but it doesn't look like any of them resulted in passed laws, or case laws. There's some case law around heir's right to privacy with regard to photography of the deceased, but that doesn't seem well settled either.
That's an interesting argument, but not one that I agree with. Rights exist without being granted. In an unorganized society, theoretically you have all possible rights. Society limits your rights, it doesn't grant them.
It's important because you won't fight to preserve rights you don't think you possess, and there is no conflict if the government decides to take control of something if you don't have an acknowledged right to it given by the government.
Essentially, in the scenario where you only have the rights the government grants you, the default uncharted behavior is illegal or immoral. In a scenario where you have all the rights not limited by the government, you can do new things and have the right to engage in new behavior without fear.
But they had their rules too. Are you suggesting their rules were somehow "wrong"? Funny how the societies left to the dustbin of history are never the "right" ones. It's almost as if the survivors are the ones who choose who was wrong.
There are absolute rules that we should adhere to, to imply that they are a social construction is to embrace nihilism and anarchy.
There is a set of universal standards and expectations have existed for millennia in many forms. There has always been an implicit set of common rules -- common across all cultures and generations -- that we as a species live by. Implying that everything is a social construction mental laziness and a desecration of our fore-bearers at best and malicious destruction of the bonds of society at worst.
One is that empathy and self-control are the internal enforcers of the civilizing process. A lack of one or both is the sign of an uncivilized society or individual.
Another is that parents' authority over children is sacred, as well as the bonds of marriage and friendship.
Empathy and self-control are not rights. They may inform rights, but different cultures see those as creating very different rights.
parents' authority over children is sacred
That's completely false, many societies (ours included) have imposed restrictions on how parents can raise their children, and sometimes in quite extreme ways (e.g. the Agoge[1]). And the child protection services in our modern Western societies take away plenty of children.
The rights of parents over children are more like the authority of the king in the Little Price - absolute, as long as they only use it in certain ways.
> There are absolute rules that we should adhere to, to imply that they are a social construction is to embrace nihilism and anarchy.
One can embrace nihilism without acting it out. We all have a choice to make: we can choose to follow the rules of our society or to not follow them. A small number of people choose to not follow them, and the rest of us choose how to deal with them to preserve the society the majority of us prefer. It happens every day.
It's all a choice, we have our free will that allows us to act however we choose. In the absence of absolute rules we can create our own rules to follow.
And yet we still extend certain dignities to their body and possessions. The deceased are treated by society in a way that suggests that they are not simply inanimate objects owned by their descendants - at least not for our practical day-to-day, non-philosophical purposes.