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Facebook answers desperate father's plea
Fri, 7th Feb 2014
FYI, this story is more than a year old

It was a desperate plea from a tearful father,

"You ever do something crazy because you just don't know what to do anymore? Well, that's what I'm doing right now," said John Berlin

"I'm calling out to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook," he continued. "You've been putting out these new movies, these one-minute movies that everyone's been sharing. Well, my son passed away ... and we can't access his Facebook account. I've tried e-mailing, and different things, but it ain't working. All we want to do is see his movie."

"I know it's a shot in the dark, but I don't care," he said, his voice breaking. "I want to see my son's video. His name's Jesse Berlin. So please help me."

Then, that same night, Facebook called.

They told him would indeed make a personalized "A Look Back" video for Jesse, using posts he had made public on Facebook before his death in 2012 at age 21. Now Berlin is planning to share it online as a tribute to his late son, CNN reported.

"I just wanted a piece of him," he told CNN in a phone interview. "These (Facebook) videos really touched me. And every time Jesse would pop up (in one of them), I was choking back tears. I just wanted so desperately to see how his video would turn out."

Facebook created the customized videos for most of its active users Tuesday to celebrate its 10th anniversary.

A Facebook spokesperson said Berlin's video came to the attention of a staffer Wednesday, who shared it on an internal network.

"With the number of people using our service, it's often very difficult to act on behalf of one. But John's story and emotion moved us to take action -- so we did," the spokesperson said.

Check out John's emotional video plea below.