What will happen to your Social Media account after Death?

The entire country has been suffering due to Corona Pandemic, financial constraints, unemployment, work from home stress, etc., There is no exaggeration saying, the whole country is grieving now isn't it? 

Have we ever thought due to the permanent termination of one's life, what can be done with his/her social media account? 

Access to Social Media After Death 

It is not immediately obvious what to do with one's social media accounts after death. Friends and family may not even think about this at that particular time at all. 'Disabling the deceased person's account may be unnecessary' some people say. But getting birthday reminders, anniversary notification, etc., how this will make us think? 

His/her posts, photos, videos, and everything in memory of them will make others unhappy bringing back to the old memories. But on the other hand, some want to keep their account to remember the person for a lifetime. 

Generally, after some months, it's hard to keep the dead person's mobile phones as it keeps giving the notification from social media, phone calls, messages, etc., Thus, the problem is people want to keep the account at the same time notifications disturb them. 

To solve this issue, In 2004, FaceBook introduced 'Memorialize an Account' if the user had died. This feature was created since it's most requested among Facebook users who gave feedback on the settings page. 

When this feature was announced, Facebook said, "We thought we can support the family and those who are grieving of their loved one's death. When a person passes away, their account can become a memorial of their life." 

Can we unlock the person's mobile phone after death with their fingerprint? 

Generally, at the funeral home, people try to unlock the deceased person's mobile phone with the fingerprint sensor. Mostly if it's a suicidal case the first thing from the family is unlocking the mobile phone only. But unfortunately, It's not possible because once the tissue is dead, the electricity from the body will fail to activate the fingerprint sensor.

When someone calls the deceased person's mobile phone after death, how painful it is to tell them that, 'the person is no more'. Similarly, it is difficult to look at the accounts and messages kept on coming from the other people without knowing that the person had died. 

Either Memorialize or Delete it 

After a person's death, it's a choice that the account can be memorialized or deleted. 

Facebook: 

When you want to memorialize the deceased person's account, it stays up on the site with the word 'Remembering' in front of the person's name who has died. Depending on the settings, friends can share a memory on the memorialized account timeline. Facebook will hide the page from in-site search results and 'People You May Know columns. Facebook will not send you their birthday notifications, memories, etc., Existing friends can see that person's Facebook wall.

A Tribute column will be shown on the memorialized account, the legacy contact can decide who can see this area and who can post tributes. They can also update the profile and cover photo of the memorialized account. 

Before death, if the user will nominate any of their friends or family members as a legacy contact, they can have the right to access their page after the person's death. They can post in their timeline but can't delete or alter any posts. They also can't un-friend anyone. They can't log in to his/her account since it has limited access to protect the user's privacy. The legacy contact can choose to delete the account or memorialize the account. 

You yourself can set your account if it has to be deleted after your death 

And also you can choose to delete your account after death. You can go into the settings and choose 'Memorialization' settings, in that tap 'Delete Account After Death' and save it. After your death, if an immediate family member lets Facebook know about it, the account will be deleted including the likes, comments, reactions, photos, videos, posts, and everything. If you've already chosen this option 'Delete Account After Death' then legacy contact has no right to memorialize the account. So you have to delete the legacy contact also. 

It is best to 'memorialize' the Facebook account. Because, after the death of someone, those who belong to him/her can see that account as their memory. 

Click here if you want to delete the deceased person's account.

Click here to memoralize the deceased person's account. A death certificate of that person is needed to do anything with the account. 

Twitter

Twitter does not give access to anyone after death due to privacy reasons. Deactivation of the account is the only option available in twitter if contacted by the immediate family member. A copy of the deceased person's death certificate and ID proof is needed for the deactivation. 

Click here if you want to know the process of the same. 

Instagram 

Instagram gives two options, like Facebook, deleting, and memorializing it. You can delete or memorialize the account by giving the birth and death certificate of the deceased person. 

If you memorialize the account means you can't change anything from the account. Posts created by the person has died will remain as it is. You can't log in, delete any posts, put likes, comments, tag any persons can't be done after memorializing the account. It's like the account will freeze completely, we can just see the photos from the accounts. That's all. 

Ask Instagram to delete the account, Click here. 

If you want to memorialize an Instagram account click here. 

I hope this is helpful for those who need it!