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This is the VOA Special English Technology Report. Benjamin Stassen took his own life in 2010. His parents thought their twenty-one year old son was happy. Since his suicide, they have attempted to learn why he killed himself. Alice and Jay Stassen thought Benjamin’s Facebook account might hold clues to his suicide. But the account does not belong to them, nor did it belong to their son. Facebook owns everything in his account. That is what the company says in its user agreement. Jay Stassen says he found it difficult even to communicate with Facebook. JAY STASSEN: “If you search on the home page of Facebook for an email address, a mailing address, a phone number, a contact person to assist in a situation like we’ve been in, you will find a dearth of information. A court ordered the company to let the Stassens see their son’s account. However, Facebook has yet to obey the order. Thirty-four-year-old Mac Tonnies died in his sleep in two thousand nine. He left behind a lot of online friends, many of whom liked his futuristic blog, “Post-Human Blues.” Work on the blog stopped when he died. A short time later, the comments area was filled with unwanted advertising. That angered his friend Dia Sobin. DIA SOBIN: “It’s really like a desecration to find spam in that comment section in that blog, which basically has become almost like a virtual burial plot.” | 
