A couple of social accounts go dormant and inactive after a while for quite a number of reasons. One of which is the death of a user. With over 1.6 billions users of Facebook, there are bound to be such. For those who don’t know, Facebook has taken a major step to deal with these thousands of deceased accounts. Facebook has introduced the Legacy Contact scheme to help handle accounts of deceased persons. The Legacy contact scheme allows a user to select a Legacy contact making it easier for the latter to look after the account after the demise of the former. Going to the settings of the facebook profile under the security tab, a user can select a Legacy contact who can switch on memorialized Facebook profile. This allows the profile to read “Remembering’ above the name of the deceased. This scheme will also allow the legacy contact to change your profile and cover photos as well as download a file full of your photos and posts. Your legacy contact would also be able to post a message at the top of profile. This is to probably make it easier for the contact to share information as regards any memorial service or special tribute to the deceased.
For those that do not want to go through the hassles of managing such accounts. The account can be deleted for life by Facebook. For such, Facebook still needs a permission to do so, therefore it is recommended that you should have a real life conversation with a close person and discuss how your social account should be managed after passing on.
For other social networks like Instagram, there is no such thing as a Legacy contact. Instead, Instagram asks you to submit the deceased’s death certificate to the social network. For Twitter ; you need to use a contact form to delete an account of a deceased user – there’s no memorialized account scheme. For Linkedin ; the network needs your family member or close friend to bring details of the member’s name, the URL for the profile, your relationship, their email address, the date they passed away, a link to the obituary and even the company they most recently worked at. Though this Facebook scheme was introduced last year. many users are yet to activate their legacy account even when they wish that someone manged their accounts when they die.
