Managing Social Media Accounts After A Loved One Has Passed Away

These days it's probably a good assumption that we're all active on a number of different social media platforms. These platform unfortuntately persist even after we have passed away. While not invasive, these accounts are generally not something we want to maintain. While they can be repurposed as memorials and tributes to your loved ones there are also steps that you can take to deactivate or delete these accounts to ensure that they are no longer available to the public. Many companies do keep records of these accounts long after they are deactivated, this will still effectively remove these accounts and stop any further activity.

Facebook

Facebook allows deactivation by accessing the 'Security' settings.

1.Click the 'Account' menu at the top right.

2.Click on 'Settings'.

3.Click the 'Security' tab in the left-hand column

4.Click 'Deactivate Account' and then follow the steps to complete the process

To memorialize a Facebook account and turn it into a tribute page you do need a Death Certificate or other form of proof of death and submit a request to Facebook staff. They will then review your request and confirm. This is usually completed within the next few weeks.

Instagram

1.Go to 'Delete Your Account' page.

2.Login if you haven't already done so.

3.Choose your reason for deactivation.

4.Enter the account password.

5.Click 'Permanently Delete Account'

Twitter

1.Select your Account Settings and click the 'Deactivate Account' button.

2.After reading the information on the next page you can click 'Okay'.

3.Enter the account password when prompted.

Twitter accounts can take up to 30 days to register deactivation. Their privacy policy further states that content may still show up on Google or Bing searches. This happens because of the way these search engines use their crawlers and Twitter unfortunately has no control over this.

While we do support the idea of turning these accounts into memorials we undestand that this is not for everyone. These platforms offer one final advantage, which is the ability to keep any photos or posts for safekeeping. If you do go the deactivation route, make sure to save a copy of any information or photos that you want to keep. This way you'll be able to refer back to them whenever you want instead of accidentally losing them.