Facebook is probably
the biggest social media
platform in existence,
dwarfing
Twitter,
LinkedIn, and other well-known
websites and boasting 2.38 billion
monthly active users (Facebook
investor relations report 24/04/19).
If you’re one of those regular users
you’ve probably built up quite a
profile, likely filled with pictures,
videos, and memories and you need
to decide whether you want to share
these or delete them forever on your
death. Facebook allows a number of
options for dealing with a deceased
users account.
The first option allows you to plan in
lifetime for what will happen to your
account on death. You can appoint a
‘Legacy Contact’ to look after your
account should you pass away. This
Legacy Contact will then have access
to your account after your death
and manage it in future with a few
restrictions. The Legacy Contact may
manage your account, memorialise it,
post a final status update, and update
your profile and cover photos. If you’ve
given them permission they can also
download a copy of everything you’ve
ever shared on Facebook.
What a Legacy Contact can’t do is
log into your account, remove or edit
any past posts, comments or photos
you’ve made, remove friends, or read
any of your private messages.
The second option allows you to tell
Facebook that you want your account
to be permanently deleted on your
death. As with assigning a Legacy
Contact this can be requested in
lifetime through the options in your
Facebook account.
The last option is to request that your
account is memorialised on your
death. If Facebook become aware of
your passing and you have not opted
to have your account deleted on death,
then your page will be memorialised
so friends and family can still view
your profile and any content you’ve
shared.
Firstly, lets address
who actually owns the
photos you post to
Instagram. You own the
copyright to any images that you post
to Instagram but give them a non-
exclusive and royalty free licence to
use and distribute the content that
you post.
Instagram’s deceased user policies are
similar to Facebook’s, which is to be
expected as Facebook are its parent
company. When you pass away your
Instagram account can either be
permanently deleted or memorialised.
The difference here though is that you
can’t plan for this in lifetime, so what
happens to your account will be down
to your family. What you might want
to consider instead is leaving clear
instructions in your Will as to what
you want to happen to your Instagram
account. Your executors or your family
can’t be given access to your account,
and there is no tool to download all
of the content you’ve uploaded to it,
but they can be directed to contact
Instagram to delete or memorialise it.
Twitter doesn’t have
any policies in place
for
memorialisation
or allowing a family
member access to your account. All
they offer is permanent removal of
a deceased users account, and they
express that they will work with an
individual who is authorised to act on
behalf of your estate. Again, you can
leave instructions in your Will for your
executor to contact Twitter to have
your account removed. Twitter will
ask for your account username, your
full name, the executor’s relationship
to you, as well as their full name and
email address. They will also need a
copy of your executor’s ID and your
death certificate before they can close
the account.
The
video
sharing
website YouTube attracts
millions of users per
month, and for dedicated
vloggers it can earn them quite a
substantial amount of money. Last
year the highest earning YouTuber,
Ryan ToysReview made $22 million
in advertising revenue from his
channel! Clearly it’s important that
you have plans in place for your
YouTube account if it’s producing an
income for you.
YouTube are owned by Google, and
Google have a similar system in
place to Facebook when it comes to
allowing you to plan in lifetime for
what should happen to your various
Google accounts on death. Through
your settings in your Google account
you may appoint an ‘Inactive Account
Manager’. This allows you to appoint
a trusted person to be notified when
your account has become inactive
and give them access to it to manage.
When doing this you also have the
choice of when your account should
be considered inactive and the plan
triggered. Google will try to contact
you multiple times before passing any
details on to your Inactive Account
Manager, so they can be sure that
you’ve passed away.
If you haven’t assigned an Inactive
Account Manager then your
immediate family or executors can
work with Google to deal with the
account. They may request that the
account is permanently deleted or
that certain data is obtained from
the account. They can also request
funds from a deceased user’s account,
as they may have died leaving funds
in their AdSense account that were
earned from advertising on YouTube
videos.
If you need some advice on how you
can manage your digital legacy or if
you have a substantial digital estate
and need some guidance on how you
can deal with this in your Will we
recommend contacting a Member of
the Society of Will Writers.
the society of will writers
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