Facebook and Death

[snowy76]

I read somewhere that there is a new area of law regarding what happens to your digital "life" once your mortal life has ended. They were saying you need to add instructions in your will for how to handle social media.

That's really interesting! I guess I could see folks wanting to treat something like Facebook as a diary/journal of sorts. Just as a person might leave their personal diaries to a particular relative or friend, there are probably folks out there who would like their profile to live on.

There are also probably legalities about who "owns" the content on those pages too - I could see a social media site possibly using the photos and stories posted by someone who's deceased. Remember the uproar when FB said Instagram photos would be considered public domain? What protection of privacy is there for someone who's dead?...

To answer the OP, I know of several people who have passed, whose profiles are still on FB. Mostly they seem to remain open and friends post their memories of the person - sometimes going there to express how much they miss the person - almost as if the deceased is still checking in. As a high school teacher, I see this especially among the friends of students who have died under tragic circumstances - car crashes, one former student was murdered, etc.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

I wish there was a way to keep the ages open for people who want to share memories, etc. but stop the profile from showing up on People You May know. That way if someone is too upset and I friends the profile ore something, it doesn't keep showing up on their screen.

 

[TwoCortWort]

I'm not sure if this has been asked before. When you die, if no one removes or deactivates your page, does it go on forever until Facebook itself "dies"? or is there a deactivation time setting?

Just one of the things that pops into my head. What do you wonder about randomly sometimes?

When my grandpa passed away we figured out how to get rid of his account by saying we forgot the password and had a new one sent, and deactivated it that way. So there is a way to get rid of it, if your family knows you have an account they can get rid of it.

 

[kaligal]

The night her sister died, my friend (at her sister's request) updated her sister's status to "Chillin with Jesus," which I thought was very funny.

My mom's Facebook page remains. We couldn't figure out how to get rid of it. I did post that she was dead.

 

[violetrose]

My husband's cousin died at age 31 two years ago and her facebook page is still active. Her family still posts on her page, mostly tributes, or things they remember about her. Other people like old classmates have stopped by and made tributes to her too. I think it's a comfort to her parents that the page is still active.

 

[Pig Pen]

My cousin passed away last year quite unexpectedly. I don't mind that her Facebook page is still active for all the reasons mentioned here. However I will occasionally get posts that say "Mary Brown likes Target," etc. It's kind of unsettling.