Facebook has just introduced a new features called the Facebook Legacy Contract which makes memorialization of accounts possible. This new feature allows a friend or a family member of a person who passed away to manage their Facebook account.
While this feature may be quite upsetting for some, analysts believe that it’s actually going to help friends and family of those who passed away deal with the pain of losing them.
Still, the one thing that has gathered the most criticism about the Facebook Legacy Contact is the fact that people can choose someone to be their legacy contact while they are still alive. It’s a type of will in which you leave your Facebook account to someone.
The purpose of these memorialized accounts is to provide a supportive environment for the community and reduce ambiguity.
So what does a Facebook legacy contact do with a Facebook account of a deceased person? Well, the contact can post information about the deceased, their memorial service and similar things. They can also respond to new friends’ request from friends and family members and update the profile picture and cover photo of the deceased person.
The new owner of the account can also download all the information the deceased person has ever shared on Facebook, such as photos, posts and profile information. What the Facebook legacy contact is not allowed to do is to log in as the deceased person and they can also not access private messages.
Setting up a Facebook Legacy Contact is not mandatory, but completely optional, so if Facebook users don’t feel comfortable with this new Facebook feature, then they can simply ignore it.
Facebook did have a memorialization option before this new Facebook Legacy Contact feature, but the old version of a memorialized account could not be manageable or accessed by anyone.
The Facebook team released a statement to announce the new Facebook Legacy Contact:
By talking to people who have experienced loss, we realized there is more we can do to support those who are grieving and those who want a say in what happens to their account after death.
Facebook is slowly rolling out the new Facebook Legacy Contact first in the United States, then the rest of the world.
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