A mother who lost her son said Meta made changes to his Facebook page without her knowledge or permission.
A handwritten letter from her son is a beacon of light during a painful, dark, time for Debbie Lofdahl of Joliet.
“He was the life of the party. He was just having a good old time. He was a throwback from the 50s,” she said. “My dad and mom helped me raise the kids and, so they were always with my dad at car shows, so Zack got into the old cars."
Zack was Lofdahl’s middle child, who died last August at the age of 33.
“When he passed away, I was still able to get on his Facebook, you know, and I could sign in because I had his password.”
Then one day – Lofdahl says Zack's log in didn’t work, with the word "remembering" appearing on his page.
“I could not can sign in, and I had his password,” she said. “It's like losing him all over again.
Lofdahl said she has tried for months to reach out to someone at Meta with no luck.
Local
"You don't get to see a lot of that other people have posted through the years on his page. You don't see a lot of it. The thing that bothers me the most is Facebook took that upon themselves to make it a remembering page. I think whoever is in charge of his estate and has power of attorney, that should be the person that says, I want to close it out or I want to stop or make it a remembrance page.”
NBC Chicago also did not get a response to our numerous requests for a statement.
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Attorney Jeremy Rosenthal says there are guidelines on Facebook about what happens after someone dies. But he thinks more could be done to inform users.
“One thing that we can do, at least until laws are passed or changed or the rules change with this, is just let other people know that this is the right step to make, that Facebook does have an option for you to click for a Legacy Contact,” he said.
Lofdahl said she won't stop until her son's page is back to a regular Facebook page.
“Cover your butt and make sure you put someone as your Legacy Contact, because you know what? One day is going to come and something's going to happen to you, and your family's going to wish that they had help, because I am wishing that so bad right now that I had help,” she said.
