What happens to social media accounts after the account owner’s death? The social media company won’t automatically know that the person is deceased, so to do anything to the account, someone must take action.
Facebook and Twitter:
The only people that will be given access, according to Facebook, is an immediate family member (they don’t define this…) or the executor of the account holder. (An executor is appointed by a court.) To allow this person to act they must provide a death certificate, if one isn’t available, Facebook also states that it will take the other following documents, power of attorney, which I find amusing because they expire at death, a birth certificate if the deceased is a minor, Last Will and Testament, Estate Letter, an obituary or memorial card.
They can request one of two actions:
- That the account be memorialized.
- The word “Remembering” will be shown next to the person’s name on their profile.
- Depending on the privacy settings of the profile, friends can share memories on the memorialized timeline.
- Content the person shared stays on Facebook and is visible on Facebook to the designated audience.
- Memorialized profiles won’t appear in suggestions for People You May Know, ads or birthday reminders.
- No one can log into the account of a memorialized profile.
- Memorialized profiles that don’t have a legacy contact can’t be changed.
- Pages with a sole admin whose profile was memorialized will be removed from Facebook if they receive a valid memorialization request.
- You can choose to have your account permanently deleted should you pass away. This means that when someone lets Facebook know that you’ve passed away, all of your messages, photos, posts, comments, reactions and info will be immediately and permanently removed from Facebook.
Facebook will allow you to appoint a legacy contact who can access your account if you pass away, Instagram does not have that feature.
Twitter:
They will work with the executor of your estate to have the account deactivated and they can required the removal of the deceased user’s account. They will require the death certificate, a copy of the requesting person’s identification.
TikTok:
In the event of a user’s death, TikTok does not provide a memorialization feature like Facebook. Instead, loved ones can contact TikTok support to request the deactivation of the deceased user’s account. This process requires proof of death, such as a death certificate, and once completed, the account and its content will no longer be accessible.
