Weibo WeChat, game account … How to inherit the network "digital heritage"?

  Image from Baidu

  Image from Baidu

  Send WeChat, Weibo and friends circle … … The footprints on the Internet are dribs and drabs, just like a graphic autobiography. Have you ever thought that this is your digital asset? If the content of the text is somewhat abstract, what about the game accounts and QQ members that you have recharged a lot?

  In the era of "cloud" life, it is no longer a simple joke to pass on your account to future generations. The value of digital heritage is increasing, and how to clearly classify it has become a difficult problem, which we should also seriously consider.

  What is "digital heritage" (link)

  "Digital heritage" refers to the digital cultural heritage on the Internet, that is, written works, materials, pictures and audio-visual with the Internet as the bearing form, forming a cultural heritage, that is, the creation and recording involved in reading channels, cultural channels, blogs, forums, BBS and spaces on the Internet today.

  Personal records have historical value.

  ■ Jilude retired cadres in Shanghai

  In the era of "Luoyang paper is expensive", the publishing threshold was high, and there were few historical records of ordinary people. In the era of Internet, everyone can leave messages on the Internet and have the conditions to leave their stories, opinions and emotions on the Internet.

  Take myself as an example, my experience in this life is mainly divided into three parts: as an educated youth, I went to Heilongjiang for 11 years, studied and taught at Fudan University for 12 years, and participated in the bid for the Shanghai World Expo for 13 years. These experiences and understandings used to exist in my mind. With WeChat, I will share and communicate with many friends in the educated youth group, college teachers and students group and Expo colleagues group.

  Let’s say that the experience of the third paragraph during my work at the Shanghai World Expo has a very important influence on many people, including me, and has left too many memories. At that time, the Shanghai World Expo Bureau had dozens of departments, and now almost every department has its own group, which is equivalent to the "online World Expo Bureau". These groups have played a role in communicating information and helping each other. I built a WeChat official account and have published nearly 400 reminiscences written by Expo colleagues. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Shanghai World Expo. I collected and summarized the photos and resumes of 15 colleagues who died in the staffing of the Expo Bureau that year, and issued a public number to commemorate these old friends who worked together.

  Why should I write, edit and spread these memories and experiences online? Of course, at first, it was "immediate motivation", that is, someone else wrote it, and I felt the same way, so I started typing. In fact, there are two motives in the subconscious. One is to let future generations know about their ancestors. I really want to know how my grandfather and father lived and what they thought. But because there is no data left, I can only dream. Perhaps I can make up for my own regret by leaving my experience to the younger generation and letting them know about the life of my ancestors. The second is to provide materials for future sociologists. A society is constantly changing in politics, economy and culture. This change is embodied in the change of personal destiny of Zhang San Li Si and others. At my age, it is often said that "I was born under the red flag and grew up in new China". The experience from my childhood will sum up the successes and setbacks, which can roughly reflect the extraordinary road that New China has taken. Therefore, if we summarize and sort out the experiences of many ordinary people, it will be a research treasure house of sociology and history in the future.

  Furthermore, the so-called national history and local chronicles are actually inseparable from genealogy and personal memories. Therefore, with the help of the Internet, ordinary people’s words on the Internet are not only personal "digital heritage", but also the heritage of social science. Therefore, the "digital heritage" of ordinary people is of historical value, which should be a consensus.

  Weiyu arrangement

  Don’t be forgotten by the world.

  ■ Zhang Yina, an employee of Xi ‘an Enterprise in Shaanxi Province

  A few days ago, I attended a college reunion, and my roommate’s little friend came to a wave of "memory killing". Four years of undergraduate course, little by little good memories come to mind. When I got home, I was full of thoughts. I can’t sleep at night, and suddenly I think of the "campus network" — — It was a social networking site that many college students used every day more than ten years ago. On a whim, I got up and planned to log in to my account to relive the "feeling of youth". However, it is useless for too long, except for remembering the email address, the password has long been forgotten. It took a long time to finally retrieve the password, open the electronic photo album and see, like smoke, the past came into view: a glimpse of the community, travel notes in the botanical garden, graduation photo archive … …

  Late at night, I was deep in thought: in the online world, what do these electronic messages and social accounts mean to a person? In the past thousands of years, a person wants to communicate with old friends in other places, and Hongyan’s book transfer is the most common way. A few thin sheets of paper bear endless emotions. Last time I read a letter from Fu Lei in Harle, I was moved by the warm words in it. Fu Lei’s original intention of writing letters home was to educate his children. Later, these letters were published, so that readers could have a glimpse of the educational ideas, which was a great blessing.

  In recent years, the information exploded. When I wake up every day, I pick up my mobile phone and brush WeChat and Weibo to learn about major events and friends at home and abroad. Order take-out and buy things on shopping and payment platforms; Have a hearty duel on the game platform. The more convenient life is, the more complicated the data is. The aggregation track of personal information is what I understand as "digital heritage".

  The four-year electronic photo album of the university is one of the "heritages". After many years, we met again by chance, which attracted endless feelings. Nowadays, in sturm und drang in the Internet age, everyone will leave their own "digital heritage". What will they do in a hundred years? I can’t help but think of the movie Journey to the Dream Ring, in which there is an impressive sentence: "The real death is that no one in the world remembers you."

  Imagine that at some accidental moment in the future, a relative happened to see my circle of friends, Weibo’s status and self-portrait photos. Wouldn’t it be amazing and interesting if they have an interest in understanding deeply and gradually explore the "I" that once existed? Perhaps this is the greatest convenience given to our generation by the Internet age — — There is no need to write a book, as long as someone still remembers it, it is not really "dead." Just like Mr. Fu Lei, he has warmed many people with words and has never been forgotten by the world.

  Our reporter Gao Bing finishing.

  Take precautions to prevent account cancellation

  ■ Staff of Xiangyue Beijing Company

  In the digital age, more and more things around us have become digital, such as taking the subway to brush the mobile phone ride code, shopping to brush WeChat or Alipay, recording our own dynamics with social software, and even our heritage has become digital.

  There are still many controversies about the handling of digital heritage. Some people think that digital heritage is also a part of personal heritage, especially the property in Alipay account and the data in online cloud disk, which should belong to their family. However, some people think that many private contents are recorded in their WeChat, Weibo and other accounts, which they don’t want to let their families know and should not be inherited.

  Personally, I hope that all my online heritage can be inherited by my family.

  First of all, I have more property in WeChat and Alipay than in bank deposits. I certainly hope that this part of the online heritage will be inherited by my family.

  Secondly, what I left behind in the online world is not only the money and property in platforms such as WeChat and Alipay, but also the words and photos I posted on the Weibo platform, the videos I posted on the Tik Tok platform, the family photos and e-books saved on the network disk … … These are also my precious spiritual wealth. I hope that after my death, my family can use these digital information to remember the little things about me and the good times we spent together.

  In addition to remembering and commemorating, I also hope that my family will say goodbye to the world for me after inheriting my social media account. This year, the COVID-19 epidemic came to expect the unexpected, and many people left this world before they could say goodbye to their relatives and friends. It made me realize that I don’t know which will come first, tomorrow or accident. If I die unexpectedly one day, I hope my family can log on to my WeChat and Weibo accounts, post the last news for me and say goodbye to friends and relatives.

  However, as far as I know, in China’s current laws and regulations, there is no personal network heritage, such as online financial management, balance treasure, copyright of works, game currency, etc., which can be inherited. The network assets such as e-mail, Weibo and game account are personal network heritages, which belong to users’ privacy and cannot be inherited.

  In view of the above regulations, I have taken precautions and told my family the accounts and passwords of WeChat, Alipay and other major platforms, so as to avoid that after my death, they can only let my accounts be cancelled because they have not logged in for too long.

  Internet rights and interests are also a kind of wealth.

  ■ Hou Xin Guangdong Guangzhou accountant

  A colleague’s WeChat avatar turned gray, and the news that she died of illness was posted in the circle of friends in the third person, and her husband became the heir of her WeChat. It is gratifying that what she saw and felt can be preserved and passed on to her family, which is the welfare brought to mankind by the information age.

  I was brought up by my grandparents. They have been dead for many years, and now I can find very little personal information about them from the Internet. I really want to know their stories, their ways and feelings in the turmoil and change, how they face pressure and setbacks, and what impact the changes of the times have brought them. When I lived with them, I was a minor, and I knew little about their stories, and I seemed to understand them. As an adult, I want to know and ask questions, but I have no chance to "record orally". I can only find their shadows from contemporary stories and guess their thoughts and practices. If we can have the chance to see our deceased relatives again as in the movie "Journey to the Dream Ring", if they lived in an online social platform, if they can write their thoughts on WeChat reading, record their lives in a circle of friends and share food in the kitchen, my "dream of crossing" should not be difficult to realize!

  For ordinary people like me, what I hope to inherit through the internet may not only be the stories and affection of my loved ones, but also virtual currency, game equipment or an online shop. The Internet is becoming more and more important in people’s lives, and people’s demand for this carrier extends from the current communication to the online communication that preserves history. More and more people realize that network rights and interests are also a kind of wealth, which makes it necessary to be inherited.

  This kind of demand is more urgent for those who manage network resources and have gained a lot. If the first generation of entrepreneurs who use the Internet dies, what will happen to the digital heritage they created? How to clearly define legal property, and is there anyone to protect this kind of property?

  A few years ago, webcasting was just entertainment, but now it has formed an industry and become a powerful means of sales. Perhaps, in a few years, the relevant laws will have clear provisions on digital heritage, and full-time network asset guardian companies will emerge as the times require, and historical participants will stay in the historical memory in new ways, providing unlimited possibilities for future generations to pass through the memory.

  Family co-management+deleting complexity and saving simplicity

  ■ Chen Qingsong Jilin Changchun Civil Servant

  In the network era, digital heritage will increase day by day, and its potential virtuality, security and inheritance are particularly attractive.

  Digital heritage still needs backup to be practical. Before entering the internet age, I often cut out the fragmentary articles that I have sent in newspapers and periodicals, print out the articles that I have not sent, and then bind and save them in volumes. With the rise of the Internet, the published articles save the network links, and the articles that have not been published directly exist in personal blogs, which is a long-term solution. Once when sorting out these articles, I found that some of the links of the early articles could not be found, and some articles could not be uploaded and saved in the blog. It took some effort to sort them out completely, and an electronic document was immediately produced and a paper version was printed for preservation, thus lamenting that "in the cloud" was not as practical as "landing" for the time being.

  Digital heritage, it is safer to delete complex and save simple. Once my child went out to participate in a study tour organized by the school, my wife and I also took the weekend to go to the mountains. When it was not convenient for us to contact, my wife’s account had been stolen, and her portrait was being staged with several family members, "Children need money in case of emergency". Fortunately, all family members knew where we were, and nothing more unpleasant happened. Since then, we have started to clean up social software, blogs, e-mails, etc. We can stop, reduce, delete, and leave necessary content. Online is simple, and while enjoying the colorful digital life, we can’t ignore digital security.

  Digital heritage, the family manages the inheritance together. As a digital heritage, some can be handed down from generation to generation. Whether from the legal point of view or saving the trouble of "guessing the password", it is only good for the family to share the management. Whenever I change my mobile phone, the first thing I do is to enter my wife’s fingerprints, my wife’s password for all digital applications, and my wife also changed all her digital applications into my password like me. When we don’t know whether all this is a digital heritage in the future and whether it can be inherited, we choose to own, manage and protect it together to prevent ominous changes in case of emergency. The digital heritage that will be produced in the network era is far more than that. The various problems that digital heritage will bring may be varied, but it is still necessary to seek "real" existence in the virtual world.

  Virtual property should also be inherited.

  ■ Zou Duo is a Beijing media person.

  "People are at work, the number is turning, and the cloud is counting". The development and popularization of the mobile Internet has brought a whole scene change to human life: from food, clothing, housing and transportation to birth, illness and death. Now that we enjoy the convenience and efficiency provided by mobility and intelligence, we should also face the future of a large number of digital heritages such as social accounts, payment information and applications after a long sleep.

  In fact, it is inevitable to be caught off guard when talking about such a highly uncertain topic as "death" at an age full of hope and longing, but it is not too much to take precautions from another angle. In my opinion, death is the beginning of another form. Everyone should inherit and protect all the assets left by the deceased, including digital heritage, with respect and gratitude. We might as well express our willingness to deal with it as clearly as possible when we are alive, and let the virtual heritage go with the wind in the mind of "leaving the scene" as soon as possible without any trouble after our death.

  First of all, we must clarify the boundaries. Although intangible assets may not sound as important as tangible assets, virtual data has produced real rights and interests in real life, and it is usually used until the end of life, so it is difficult to arrange it completely in advance. Therefore, we should not underestimate, and we should distinguish which digital information is material heritage and which is spiritual heritage, and then deal with it differently. For example, virtual applications with transaction and exchange functions, such as Alipay, Yu ‘ebao and WeChat red envelopes, should be extracted and distributed in accordance with laws and hard documents such as the will of the deceased, the repayment of the repayment and the inheritance of the inheritance. As for those spiritual information, such as words, sounds, photos, etc., we should keep, delete and cancel them according to the soft standards such as the style of the deceased and the value of the information to the living.

  Secondly, we should update our ideas. The Internet will play an important role in more life scenes, and it will also produce more types and volumes of digital information, which is the general trend. Apart from legal details, we should strive to keep pace with the times in ideology and upgrade our cognition. Digital heritage is a new thing with privacy and concealment. If you don’t tell me, it’s hard for others to know which accounts you have. Even if you do, you can’t log in without a password, and you can’t do other operations. Therefore, it is suggested that everyone adjust their mentality, abandon the strange psychology of "explaining the aftermath" and "ominous omen", sort out and record their various account information in a timely manner, and make a will as much as possible, which can not only avoid unnecessary legal disputes, but also help digital heritage to play a greater role in the real world.

  In daily life, a series of apps such as scanning code payment, "cloud" communication and online shopping often make me feel that technological progress really makes life better. Because I am fortunate enough to have experienced this comfortable and happy life, I very much hope that I can keep this beauty and pass it on when I leave.