What happens to your social media profiles when you die?

Many users must have asked this question. So what happens to them, will it still be accessible to outside world or will it be locked, or is there anyway by which some of your family members can lock down the account without knowing the password? Well, it depends on which social media profile you’re talking about. In this article I am going to write what happens to some of these social media profiles once you die.

1. Facebook

So first lets see what are Facebook team’s policies are. In the case of Facebook you have two options. You can either have a Memorialized account or you can have a deleted profile. Facebook will not give you access to anyone else’s profile no matter if they are deceased or not.

Memorializing a Facebook account:

In this case, your family members or close relatives or friends can request your profile be memorialized, which means your account will turn into a Facebook page in memory of yours. Once your account is memorialized no one will be able to login to your account i.e. the Facebook page and it will stay as long as there is Facebook. You can find the information relating to this here: Memorializing the account

Removal of a deceased person’s account:

In this case your family members or close relatives or friends can file a request on Facebook for the removal of your account. Facebook will need verification that you are an immediate family member or executor for account removal or special requests. Find more info on this here: Removal of a deceased person’s account

2. Twitter

After Facebook the first thing which comes to my mind is actually Twitter. You will be glad to know that Twitter too provides way to handle the situation. Unlike Facebook in Twitter you have only one option, you can work with Twitter to deactivate the deceased person’s Twitter account. For this you will need a few verification documents and documents which shows that you’re an immediate family member to this person. Find more information about Twitter’s policy regarding the deactivation of a deceased person here.

3. Google

When it comes to Google, they have always had their own special ways. In this case too they have their own methods. But if we were to choose a winner in the policies based on how it works and how easy it is them to do what you want once the account holder is deceased, our clear winner is Google.
Google has a utility called Inactive Account Manager using which you can actually assign someone to manage your account once you’re deceased. Google uses several signals to understand whether you are still using your Google Account. These include your last sign-ins, your search history, usage of Gmail (e.g., the Gmail app on your phone) and Android check-ins.
But this set up needs to be done beforehand and if you have done so, your connection will get access to your account. It doesn’t stop here too. You can actually set up your account to send a notification(this is optional) once your account has been inactive for the specified amount of time. You can set a message which they will receive and choose what data to share with them once you’re deceased. All the information will be available in the notification email should you choose to enable the notification alert. You can find more info on this here: Inactive Account Manager

4. Pinterest

Pinterest offers a very basic method of deleting a deceased person’s account like Twitter. You just have to contact Pinterest and send them documents to prove your relationship to the deceased person and a documentation which verifies the death of the said person. More info here: Deactivate a deceased person’s account

5. LinkedIn

LinkedIn offers an electronically signed form to fill out by a close person to the deceased person. Obviously the form will have questions about the deceased person such as the member’s name, the company they worked at most recently, your relationship to them etc. Once you fill up the form, LinkedIn review team will contact you to proceed further on this. If everything is in order LinkedIn will close the account and delete the profile of the deceased person. More info here: Deceased LinkedIn Member – Removing Profile
So I hope this article was useful. Have anything to add to it? Let us know by commenting below or tweeting to us.