Facebook has allowed a grieving father to view his son's Look Back video after a video plea he posted to YouTube went viral. John Berlin, of St. Louis, Mo., was unable to view the Facebook page of his son, Jesse Berlin, who died in 2012 of natural causes at the age of 21. Family and friends of Jesse were locked out of his Facebook page, but after seeing photos of his son show up from time to time on the social network, John wanted to view the Look Back video for his son that other Facebook users had been sharing.
The Look Back feature, a 62-second video of Facebook users' highlights (or most embarrassing moments, depending on how well you purge your photos) on the social network was recently launched to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the company. John was curious to know what Jesse's own video would look like.
"All we want to do is see his movie, that's it," John said in his video.
After emailing Facebook and receiving an automated response, John tweeted at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, but to no avail. He said that it "dawned on him" that people make videos that sometimes go viral, so he created his own version. New York City news network PIX11 saw the video on Reddit and contacted a Facebook representative; the company is now working to create a Look Back video for Jesse. The viral video has since received over 835,000 views.
Facebook has a "memorializing" process for profiles of users who have passed away, but doesn't give the full access to accounts because of privacy concerns.
