Facebook Legacy Settings

Social media is everywhere these days and it even stays with us in death. We can create memorial pages for loved ones, document their lives via video and photo and now as of February 12th Facebook have followed Google and announced a new policy – Legacy Pages.

Previously, if a person died without someone else knowing their password, there was no way to make any changes. The most awkward of this was the daily reminders to ‘friends’ of birthdays, friend suggestions etc even though the person would never accept the friend request or see the brithday message as they wre deceased. The only way to delete the account was to know the passowrd or show a death certificate and practivally fight with Facebook to close the account.

Now, however, while you are still alive, you name someone else you know on Facebook to be your legacy contact. That person can make changes to memorialize your account. 

This includes:

• Writing a new post/status to show at the top of the memorialized Timeline – maybe some information about a memorial or service.

• Respond to new friend requests from family and friends who were not yet connected on Facebook .

• Updating the profile picture and cover photo (sometimes this is needed where the updated photo is a bit more approriate).

So how can you use this new ‘Legacy’ Setting’?

Open your Facebook SETTINGS tab, choose SECURITY and then LEGACY CONTACT at the bottom of the page. After choosing your legacy contact, you’ll have the option to send a message to that person letting them know what you’ve done.