{Read in 4 minutes} We all have things that we are proud of. Some of us have wonderful families and children, others have distinguished careers, and still others have their collection of tasteless and perhaps offensive memes. Those of us that are lucky, have all of these things.
When writing a Will, we often consider things like how to provide for children, disabled individuals. and also, even pets. Very few of us are immediately concerned with what happens to our Facebook and other social media accounts after we die — which is probably a good thing in the hierarchy of priorities in people’s lives. However, there are some people who would like their social media presence to continue, so I’d like to talk a little bit about how to do that.
In general, any good estate plan involves the appointment of an Agent. This might include an Executor under a Will; the Agent under a Power of Attorney; or a Health Care Proxy. A client would make all of these appointments within their legal documents. However, generating a legacy contact on Facebook is an online setting that one creates by going into the settings on their Facebook account.
What is the legacy contact and why should you care about it?
Well, a legacy contact is someone who can manage your Facebook account upon your death. You should pick a person you trust so that someone doesn’t play a prank upon you and change your Facebook page to a legacy page, much to the horror — or delight — of friends/enemies/frenemies.
Why would someone need to do this?
First, this person may want to do it to post information concerning your funeral or memorial service for people who want to participate, either in person or by writing some sort of online tribute on your Facebook or another page.
Second, friends will still be able to tag the person in photographs to create online memories immediately after their death.
Third, for those who wish to seek assistance in funding or in helping the family fund funeral costs, this could be a great way to link to an online fundraiser site.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, this may be the only way to stop getting requests from internet models looking to become your Facebook friends to drag you online to visit their “live cam”/NSFW sites (don’t worry, loyal reader – I will not subject you to a hyperlink here!).
Facebook has a lot of information about this. For example, here are some links that you might find helpful to understand what happens to your Facebook account upon your death.
– What happens to my Facebook account if I pass away? (People ask me about this all of the time.)
– Who should be a legacy contact and what is it that they do?
– Instructions on how to add a legacy contact.
Normally at the end of this blog, I would invite you to contact me for more information. However, this isn’t really a legal document that I can prepare for a client. This is something that people tend to DIY and is something that you should discuss with the person you choose to name as your legacy contact.
But just for consistency — for more information, feel free to contact me.
