Where Do Your Tweets and Facebook Posts Go When You Die?
Before social media, people wrote – and kept – letters. Those letters that survived the writer or recipient’s death were usually passed down through the generations, taking their rightful place in family lore.
But what happens to their modern counterparts – the Tweets, emails and Facebook posts – after the account holder dies?
Twitter has announced a “deceased user” policy that outlines what must be done to either remove an account entirely or archive the deceased’s Tweets so they are available to family members offline. To read the full policy, click here.
Facebook instituted a policy last October that provides family members with the choice of either deleting the account or having it “memorialized” – which means that it stays on Facebook and other Facebook members can continue to access and interact with it.
Facebook provides family members with a form to Report a Deceased Person’s Profile.
For Google email accounts, the process for accessing a deceased person’s mail can be found by going here. You must send a death certificate, a photocopy of your ID, a copy of any email sent to you from the deceased and other identification verification. It takes 30 days for Google to process the documents; if you need access sooner, you’ll need a court order.
For Yahoo! email accounts, you can delete the account of a deceased person if you know their log-in information. If you do not, you can either do nothing and the account will close by itself in a few months, or provide Yahoo! with a death certificate and request the account be closed.
More reminders to keep online identity information up to date and with your estate planning documents to save your heirs a lot of headaches online!
