Facebook refuses removal of pictures; father petitions online
It seems like today is the day for battles. A father of a teenager who died last year in February is taking a stand against social network, Facebook, to take down his daughter's photo especially those photographs which show her together with her killer. His daughter, Hollie Gazzard, has died in the hospital last year following an attack where she was stabbed by her ex-boyfriend Asher Maslin. Asher Maslin is now imprisoned having been sentenced to life, five months after the incident.
The pain, which might have diminished a bit by the sentence, is now growing. Why you might ask? Seeing his daughter's picture together with her ex in Facebook social media account can be quite upsetting. When Hollie died, Facebook froze her Facebook profile as a way to memorialize her; this practice is used every time one of their users died.
However, Hollie's account included pictures that show her together with Maslin. A total of nine pictures makes Hollie's father, Nick Gazzard, sick and feel distressed so he has asked Facebook to remove them.
On the other hand, as a response, a Facebook representative said that though they understand tragic cases like that of Nick's daughter and how it might be mean to the family of the deceased which might also stir painful memories, Facebook's memorialized accounts were designed to preserve the privacy of their user.
This response prompted Nick to start an online petition through Change.org to remove the nine images that can still be viewed by his daughter's friends on her Facebook account. Nick said, in an interview that, although they appreciate that Facebook has policies to follow, all they want and ask is for Facebook not to take the blanket approach and dismiss individual requests like theirs.
Nick further stated that although he is fighting for his daughter's account, he is sure that they are not the only ones who have the same concern. In the future, there might be similar cases where the exception to the rule might apply.