What Next TBD: Digital Life After Death

Slate Technology

Slate

Society & Culture, Technology, History

4.6 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sorting through a loved one’s things after they’ve died can be an emotional, difficult chore. But now, added to that, people have to sort through the deceased’s password-protected online presence. Guests: Kate Lindsay, author of the internet culture newsletter Embedded and the article “My Mom Will Email Me After She Dies” in the Atlantic. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I made you think you was real.
0:02.0	My name is Caden Sinclair.
0:04.0	Some people call us American royalty.
0:06.0	We were Liars.
0:08.0	A new series on Prime Video.
0:10.0	We were happy. We wanted for nothing.
0:12.0	Based on the best-selling novel.
0:15.0	Something terrible happened last summer,
0:17.0	and I have no memory of what or who hurt me.
0:20.0	No one in my family will tell me.
0:22.8	When you're left for dead, you want answers.
0:25.2	We will liars.
0:26.2	New series, watch now, only on Prime Video.
0:33.8	Catherine Lindsay wasn't thinking about death.
0:39.8	Then she got a text message from her mom.
0:42.9	So I think this was back in April or sometime around then, and I just get this kind of
0:48.6	long text from my mom out of nowhere, letting me know that she was doing sort of a review
0:53.5	of her Google privacy
0:54.7	settings. And when you take a look at that, one of the things they have a section for is
0:59.1	something called, like, your digital legacy. And there's a few different sort of things you can do
1:04.5	in there. And one of one of the options is designating a person that that would go to if you were inactive for a certain period of time
1:13.2	and sort of the standard that they suggest is three months and so that's what she clicked.
	...

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