“What should happen to my Facebook account after I pass away?”

Has that thought ever occurred to you?

If YES, then you have a solution. If NO, then it is worth giving it a thought. Many of the major online platforms provide ways and means we can use to decide what happens after we passed away.

This particular post is about Facebook platform. That feature on Facebook is called “Memorialization“. In short, you are creating a Digital Will for your Facebook account.

To do that, there are two options involved. They are:

1. Allow someone to manage your account when you pass away.
2. Allow Facebook to permanently delete everything you have ever put on their platform.

The following sections explain the two options.

Allow someone to manage your account when you pass away.

According to Facebook terms and terminologies, the person who will manage your account when you are no more is called legacy contact.

According to Facebook, a legacy contact is someone you choose to look after your account if it is memorialized. If you add a legacy contact, that person will be able to make decisions about your account once it is memorialized.

Your legacy contact can:

1. Write a pinned post for your profile (example: share a final message on your behalf or provide information about a memorial service).
2. View posts, even if you had set your privacy to “Only Me”.
3. Decide who can see and who can post tributes, if the memorialized account has an area for tributes.
4. Delete tribute posts.
5. Change who can see posts that you are tagged in.
6. Remove tags of you that someone else has posted.
7. Respond to new friend requests (example: old friends or family members who were not yet on Facebook).
8. Update your profile picture and cover photo.
9. Request the removal of your account.
10. Turn off the requirement to review posts and tags before they appear in the tributes section, if you had timeline review turned on.
11. Download a copy of what you have shared on Facebook, if you have this feature turned on.

What your legacy contact cannot do

1. Log into your account.
2. Read your messages.
3. Remove any of your friends or make new friend requests.

Now that we know who a legacy contact is, let us see how to make someone a legacy Contact.

To add a legacy contact, follow the following steps:

1. Click in the top right of Facebook and click settings.
2. Click memorialization settings.
3. Type in a friend’s name and click add.
4. To let your friend know they are now your legacy contact, click Send.

If your account is memorialized, your legacy contact will be notified.

Note:

• You must be 18 years or older to select a legacy contact.
• The legacy contact cannot do anything, until you pass away, and a legal proof submitted to Facebook (via upload). Facebook will then verify the documents and if it is true, then the legacy contact will have the permission to manage your account.
• You can always go back to the memorialization settings to update it or revoke the permission.
• You can also choose to completely delete your records when you pass away.

Allow Facebook to permanently delete everything you have ever put on their platform

The second part is allowing Facebook to delete everything you have posted on their platform, and then close your account permanently. The same place you made someone a legacy contact, you can find a check box. If you check it, your account will be deleted when you pass away.

Conclusion

Personally, I have found three reasons why it is good to set a legacy contact.

1. Business Wise: I run my business online, and I want my customers to remain. You definitely will not like the thousands of followers to disappear.
2. Generation unborn: The average person like me, and maybe you, have never had good enough platform to immortalize our thoughts. Generations unborn will know exactly how you think.
3. Funeral service update: Facebook recently released a feature that will allow your legacy contact to send tributes.

The main disadvantage I can think of is security. If you have something to hide, then let Facebook delete it after your death.

I hope it helps. You can also visit remote.com.gh for a step-by-step guide, with images and videos.

 

Author: Kaunda Ibn Ahmed (Online President, Republic of Ghana)

Remote.com.gh (Member, Institute of ICT Professionals, Ghana)

For comments, contact kaunda@outlook.comor Mobile: +233 234 80 90 10