No one wants to think about his or her own death, this kind of option is going to become increasingly common as we share more of our lives online. Facebook follows Google in providing this type of posthumous functionality, and we expect other sites to follow suit.
How To Decide Who Will Inherit Your Facebook Account
For many of us, Facebook is a place to remember and honor those we’ve lost. When a person passes away, their account can become a memorial of their life, friendships and experiences.
How To Decide Who Will Inherit Your Facebook Account
Facebook is introducing a new feature that lets people choose a legacy contact—a family member or friend who can manage their account when they pass away.
How Does It Work
You need to let know Facebook that a person has passed away, they will memorialize the account and the legacy contact will be able to:
– Write a post to display at the top of the memorialized Timeline (for example, to announce a memorial service or share a special message)
– Respond to new friend requests from family members and friends who were not yet connected on Facebook
– Update the profile picture and cover photo
If someone chooses, they may give their legacy contact permission to download an archive of the photos, posts and profile information they shared on Facebook.
Other settings will remain the same as before the account was memorialized. The legacy contact will not be able to log in as the person who passed away or see that person’s private messages.
Alternatively, people can let Facebook know if they’d prefer to have their account permanently deleted after death.
Here’s How To Choose A Legacy Contact
– Open your settings
– Choose Security
– Then Legacy Contact at the bottom of the page
– After choosing your legacy contact, you’ll have the option to send a message to that person.
You may give your legacy contact permission to download an archive of the posts, photos and profile info you’ve shared on Facebook.
Facebok also redesigned memorialized profiles to pay tribute to the deceased by adding “Remembering” above their name and making it possible for their legacy contact to pin a post to the top of their Timeline.
Legacy contacts is available now in the US and Australia. Facebook looks forward to expanding to more countries. Setting up a legacy contact is completely optional.
We hope this work will help people experience loss with a greater sense of possibility, comfort and support.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
