A little over a week after her death, Qandeel Baloch’s Fanpage on Facebook has been deleted, we have checked.
This goes against the usual policy of converting a passed away person’s account and any pages into memorials, which preserves the pictures, videos and other posts so that their family and friends can share memories and celebrate their lives.
Instead, the page has been deleted for ever with no live link available.
It is probable that Facebook received requests for removal of the account and complied with it. Alternatively, someone having access to Qandeel Baloch’s page manually unpublished the page.
Qandeel Baloch was a viral social celebrity in Pakistan and gained fame through controversial photos and videos. A subject of division when she was alive, she was murdered in the name of honor by her brother in Multan.
We should mention that Qandeel’s Facebook page was deleted once before as well. However, she was able to recover it personally. This time it may be gone forever, as there’s no Qandeel Baloch to get her Facebook page recovered.
The removal of her account raises the question of how Facebook determines whether to delete a person’s account or memorialize it after they pass away.
UPDATE
It appears that the deleted page was Qandeel Baloch’s fanpage. Her official account, which is available here, has been converted into a memorial account.