Facebook is a vast social media network which has millions of users operating at any given time. The founder of the network, Mark Zuckerberg, successfully created the online community back in 2004 creating a platform where everyone can share their personal life details, daily updates and life events via status updates, photos, videos etc.
However, in a situation of an account holder’s death, Facebook, at the beginning, used the option of automatically freezing the particular account after learning of the passing. Later, the network adopted a more friendly method of letting friends and loved-ones visit and post the profile just as they did before.
Facebook has been looking at ways to help families remember loved ones following a series of high-profile cases in which people wanted to access dead relative’s pages.
In one, a father wanted to create a video using Facebook’s Look Back feature, which brings together popular moments on a person’s profile.
But the father was unable to make one as he did not have access to his son’s profile
Responding to the matter, Facebook said it would create one on behalf of his dead son and promised that they would look again at how to help families in similar circumstances.
In 2009, Facebook introduced a memorialising process which meant that a user who had died would no longer appear alongside advertising, or in contextual messages – and friends would not be reminded of a person’s birthday.
Now, however, Facebook has introduced a much better option, giving the users the freedom to decide weather they want their account deleted or name a “Digital Heir” or “Legacy Contact”-as Facebook calls it, to manage parts of their accounts posthumously.
Announcing the new feature, Facebook said: “When a person passes away, their account can become a memorial of their life, friendships and experience”
The users will be able to pick the “legacy contact” through the website’s or app’s security page. The new feature will be available to the users in the United States on Thursday, 12th February, with others to follow later.
One could argue, What is the point in maintaining a social media profile after death? Well, Facebook Legacy Contacts will have access to manage the accounts in a way that can turn the deceased person’s profile into a “Digital Gravestone”. The named legacy contacts can also write posts to display at the top of their friend’s or family member’s memorialized profile, change profile picture, cover photo and even respond to new friend requests on behalf of the deceased profile owner. If the legacy contact’s are granted prior permission, they can download and archive posts and photos from the given profile but will have no permission to download or read the owner’s private messages.
This new optional feature will only work if one names another as a legacy account. If you have not, then once Facebook learns of your demise, it will automatically freeze the account and leave posts and pictures at the privacy settings you determined. Facebook calls this process “memorialization”.
The legacy accounts also cannot edit what the deceased has already posted or what his or her friends post on the profile and also cannot decide to delete the account.
In order to select your legacy contact, follow these steps (works for both Website and mobile app):
1. Go to Settings
2. Choose Security and then Legacy Contact at the bottom of the page
3. Designate an existing Facebook friend
4. Grant the person permission to download and archive your data or choose to have your account deleted after death.
(NOTE: This only works once the feature has been released for the country/continent you live in)
Also, you can select only one person—no backup. One can change their legacy contact selection at any time, but a legacy contact can’t pass along the responsibility to someone else. Facebook will also designate a legacy contact if named in a legal will instead of naming one on the profile settings.
