We’ve previously written about what happens to your digital life after you die and it appears more and more attention is being paid by companies to this, with Facebook the latest to announce a new feature based around this concept.
Currently your Facebook page will be frozen if the company learns of your death, however a new feature has been announced allowing for you to elect a digital executor to run your page in the event in your death. This new feature grants your elected digital executor the ability to continue to run your page as a memorial to you, or alternatively delete your page entirely.
Electing a digital executor for your Facebook page is set to be as easy as nominating them in your settings. The company has also announced though that if you set out your wishes for a digital executor in your will, but fail to add them in the page settings, it will honour your wishes and grant this person access to your account.
If you’re especially privacy conscious Facebook has said that your nominated executor will only be able to view and edit your photos and public posts and will not have any access to your private messages.
Facebook is terming this digital executor as a ‘legacy contact’ who can turn the page into an appropriate memorial that your friends and family can come to and write messages, or share photos.
It’s interesting to see a company as large as Facebook now formalize the concept of a digital executor. We share so much of ourselves and our lives online now that often this is the place where a lot of grieving will take place also.