Tech on Tuesday: Digital Afterlife
What happens to your online legacy after your death? It might not be something you’ve thought about before, but it’s important to consider your options before it’s too late.
Do your Instagram posts live on in perpetuity? What happens to your Facebook page?
The answer isn’t clear across the board, but each social media site has its own set of procedures in place.
After your death, Facebook offers the ability to permanently delete your account or you can request a memorialized account.
If you request to have the account memorialized, the word “remembering” will appear next to the account name. All other privacy settings for the account will remain the same.
In order to request a memorialized account, you’ll need to add a legacy contact. Your legacy contact won’t be able to log into your account, but they are authorized to manage the page on your behalf, meaning they can write a pinned post to share a message, update your profile picture and request the deletion of the account.
Instagram also offers options to delete or memorialize your profile in the event of death. Unlike Facebook, Instagram doesn’t offer the option to select a legacy contact. Instead, an assigned family member will need to contact Instagram to make the change.
Twitter doesn’t offer quite as many options. According to Twitter, “in the event of the death of a Twitter user, we can work with a person authorized to act on behalf of the estate or with a verified immediate family member of the deceased to have an account deactivated.”
Just like with Twitter, a family member will need to be assigned to contact Pinterest to remove the account.
YouTube
With YouTube you can appoint an Inactive Account Manager. The Inactive Account Manager will be notified if the account is inactive for a certain amount of time. Google will work with the Inactive Account Manager to close the account.
LinkedIn actually doesn’t require a family member make the removal request. LinkedIn just asks for some general identifying information and a link to the obituary.
