According to Entrustet, a digital asset planning company, 480,000 United States Facebook users and 1.78 million international Facebook users will die in 2011, which works out to about one death every three minutes. Facebook now allows you to provide a message that your surviving loved ones will see on Facebook with a service called If I Die.
If I Die permits you to leave a message or a video for your friends and loved ones that will appear on your profile page. Once the application is installed, you record your memorial message and appoint three trustees who will be called upon to confirm your death, at which point the message will appear on your profile page. Since Facebook is currently the most popular social media website, it is a fitting venue for your last message to appear.
Your family and friends may complete a Facebook form providing a link to an obituary or other information confirming a user’s death. Upon receipt of this form, the profile is officially memorialized. The user will cease appearing on Facebook’s suggestions, and information like status updates will not appear on Facebook’s news feed.
This is a relatively safe option, since it gives the deceased a certain degree of privacy, without eliminating their memory forever. In the event that relatives prefer not to have the profile stand as an online memorial, Facebook provides that it will remove the account altogether.
It is strongly suggested that you entrust a family member, good friend or spouse with your Facebook, and any other social media network login information and instructions as to what your wishes are with respect to your Facebook profile upon death.
It should be noted that this is not an endorsement of the Facebook App, If I Die. Each Facebook user should carefully consider the privacy implications whenever allowing any application to access his or her information.
Todd C. Ratner, Esq.
Photo Credit: Microsoft