Since social media is pretty much real life these days, it was about time wills started to enter the digital conversation.
As of yesterday, Facebook began rolling out a policy that would allow users to choose a “legacy contact” to manage their accounts after they die. Though admittedly somewhat of a morbid concept, it tackles an issue that many families and friends of the deceased have accused Facebook of being less than accommodating about.
The goal is to give legacy contacts the ability to create an online memorial for their friend or family member as opposed to having their profile frozen in digital immortality. They’ll be able to write a post to display at the top of their memorialized profile page, change their profile picture, and even respond to new friend requests on behalf of the deceased, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. Another change is that users can choose to have their profiles deleted permanently.
Whether they can continue to play Candy Crush on their behalf is unclear.
While the decision grants users the right to determine their post-digital life existence, it ultimately offers a lot more for those they’ve left behind. Considering how deeply many of us have connected our lives to Facebook, allowing our closest the chance to save photos, videos, passages and milestone status updates after we pass is a step in the right direction.
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