Apart from sharing the happy moments, saying what your feeling, posting photos, connecting with your friends; Facebook wants to help you honour those we have lost by make their Facebook account a memorial page of their life, friendships and experiences.
The social Media Company has unveiled a new feature that lets people choose a legacy contact—a family member or friend who can manage their account when they pass away. Once someone tells Facebook that a person has passed away, the company will memorialize the account and the person responsible will be able to:
- Write a post to display at the top of the memorialized Timeline (for example, to announce a memorial service or share a special message)
- Respond to new friend requests from family members and friends who were not yet connected on Facebook
- Update the profile picture and cover photo
If someone chooses, they may give their legacy contact permission to download an archive of the photos, posts and profile information they shared on Facebook. Other settings will remain the same as before the account was memorialized. The legacy contact will not be able to log in as the person who passed away or see that person’s private messages.
Alternatively, people can let us know if they’d prefer to have their Facebook account permanently deleted after death.
To choose a legacy contact one will
Open your settings.
Choose Security
Legacy Contact at the bottom of the page.
After choosing your legacy contact, you’ll have the option to send a message to that person.
You may give your legacy contact permission to download an archive of the posts, photos and profile info you’ve shared on Facebook.
We’ve also redesigned memorialized profiles to pay tribute to the deceased by adding “Remembering” above their name and making it possible for their legacy contact to pin a post to the top of their Timeline.
We’re introducing legacy contacts in the US first and look forward to expanding to more countries. Setting up a legacy contact is completely optional.
Our team at Facebook is grateful and humbled to be working on these improvements. We hope this work will help people experience loss with a greater sense of possibility, comfort and support.