HIGHLIGHTS
*Facebook memorializes your account by default when it is notified of your demise.
*But you can choose to delete your account permanently after your death.
*You can choose to appoint a legacy contact to Facebook account active after your death.
Life is uncertain. But your life on social media is not. Or at least doesn't have to be. May be your friend will forget your birthday. But Facebook will not. May be you will move to a new city, leaving behind some memories in your old city. But Facebook will remember them all. And maybe one day the inevitable will happen, you will die, but not on Facebook where your friends, who don't know what happened to you, will probably keep pinging you, believing that you are upset with them and hence not replying, or Facebook will ping your friends reminding them of your birthday.
Now, these are the vexing issues that Facebook has tried to deal with. After all, it is used by over 2 billion people, and the matter of a user dying is something Facebook engineers and product managers have thought about. So, they have come up with a few solutions.
More often than not, people share a large part of their lives on Facebook, which makes it their digital abode. And when they pass away, it's essential that that digital abode is safely preserved. Facebook, unlike other social media platform including Twitter and Instagram, gives users an option to either delete or keep the account of their deceased relative in event of a death.
This happens via Facebook Memorialized Account, a feature that allows family and friends to share photos and messages on the deceased person's timeline long after he or she is gone.
What is a Memorialized Account and how does it work?
A memorialized account on Facebook is a place where friends and family members can gather to share messages and memories on the timeline of the deceased person. Such accounts don't appear in public searches and they have the word "Remembering" shown next to the person's name in their profile.
As per Facebook's guidelines, no one can log into memorialized accounts. But if you have appointed a "legacy contact", they can manage your account after it has been memorialized. This includes writing pinned posts, responding to friend requests, update your profile and cover photos or request for the removal of your account. Your legacy contact, however, cannot log into your account, change your past posts or read your messages.
But what if I don't want my account to be memorialized?
If you don't want your account to no longer exist on Facebook, you can choose to have your account, including all your posts and photos be permanently deleted. This means that Facebook would remove your account and delete all your data when someone notifies the social media company of your passing away.