How to close down a loved one’s social media accounts
How to close down a loved one’s social media accounts
Social networks have opened new doors for staying in touch with our family and friends. However, what happens to the collection of photos, posts and videos of our family and friends when our loved ones have passed? The deceased social media can be closed or left open. This will depend on your family’s personal choices and the social media channels policy.
Facebook has approximately 4 million active users in Greece, however Social Media presents a growing concern for many families all around the world, when have to deal with the passing of a loved one. Thankfully, the Social Networks have recently updated their policies to ease and manage the social media accounts. We’ve created a short help guide if you feel a little overwhelmed when you have to close down deceased social media accounts.
This platform is conscious about how hard is to process the death of our loved ones and it has introduced a revolutionary idea: to turn the profile to a social memorial. Friends and families are able to share the loss and provide support by contributing with messages of love, pictures and memories in a whole social media bereaved. This allows you not only to commemorate, but to feel the warmth of your close ones regardless the location and the time frame.
The management of the memorial is easy: only you are in charge. By presenting a proof of death, Facebook gives you complete access to the profile. If you wish not to share the loss online you can also deactivate the account. It is totally understandable if you want to keep it private in between close friends and family.
Blogger, Gmail, Buzz and anything tied to a Google account
One of the main advantages you’ll find in Google’s policies is that the one account will generally cover all services. This makes the process much easier. In one procedure, you can access and deactivate all the social platforms that are tied to the same user, saving time and unwanted inconveniences.
Unlike the social platforms above, Twitter doesn’t give you access to the account to manage it regardless your relationship with the user. But don’t worry- you can send a personal request to archive the tweets and easily deactivate the account.
As owned by Facebook, their policies are very similar. You will be able to close down and manage the account by crediting your relationship with your family member or friend. All the images are in your control.
Like Twitter, you won’t get the login information of deceased user. However, you will always be able to deactivate the account by personal request.
Sharing pictures and stories of our deceased loved ones on social media can be a beautiful thing and helpful to the mourning process. However, we should respect the privacy of the deceased’s family and not abuse it. Social platforms policies are there to help us with the loss process and make it a bit easier for everyone, whether you want to maintain their presence online or reduce it to a private memorial with loved ones. For any further information on planning a memorial or helping to decide whether to turn your loved one’s social media profiles into an online memorial, you can contact us.
