ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — The digital age brings with it an entirely new set of rules and problems. But one that isn’t commonly addressed … when someone dies, what happens to their social media accounts?
Facebook has a feature where you can tell them in advance whether you’d like to have your account memorialized or permanently deleted. If you choose the memorialized option, the word remembering will show up next to your name, and if you choose to, you can set up a legacy contact. This person will be granted admin access to future use of your account upon your passing. You can also opt not to allow anyone access.
Google lets you choose up to ten people to be the executors of your account. You can set up an amount of time between sign-ins to designate your account inactive, and once the threshold is met, your chosen contact will get a prewritten email from you with your last wishes. Unlike Facebook, you can designate this person to have full access to your account. This includes your email, photo, and chat histories.
Twitter, Snapchat, Linked-In, and Tumblr do not allow account access to anyone. However, a verified family member can fill out a form to request removal of the deceased user’s account.
Many sites including Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL share the same standard protocols that allow immediate family members to request deletion of a deceased persons account.
Contributors to this news report include: Gabriella Battistiol, Producer; Roque Correa, Videographer and Editor.
