What should happen to your social media profiles after you die? – SCREENSHOT Media

What should happen to your social media profiles after you die?

By Alma Fabiani

Published May 2, 2019 at 12:26 PM

Reading time: 2 minutes

No one lives forever, that’s a fact that everyone can agree with—at least for now. While most of older generations haven’t produced enough digital data to have ‘digital remains’ after their death, most of Gen Z and below will leave an enormous bulk of data through their social media after they’re gone. Creepy? Maybe, but more and more companies want you to start embracing the idea of a digital afterlife. Who should have control over someone’s social media pages is the real problem here, and it is one that just keeps on growing.

A few days ago, a study conducted by researchers Carl Öhman and David Watson from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) showed how quickly Facebook’s user base could be outnumbered by dead users. Öhman and Watson predicted that by 2050, there would be more accounts that belonged to deceased users than living, active people on Facebook.

Most people, when planning their legacy, will think about their possessions and their finances. What about all the different versions of ourselves we’ve scattered everywhere online? What about your hard-drive backups? Digital lives are immortal, so figuring out what will happen to them while you’re still alive is beneficial, but to understand what can be done, we first need to know what happens to accounts of deceased people.

Even though this is a rather new concept, some of the big social media websites like Facebook already offer some form of ‘death planning’. You have two options: the first one is to set your account to delete everything once Facebook is notified of your death by someone. The second option is picking someone close to you as your ‘legacy contact’. This special someone will then be able to write a post pinned at the top of your page, accept friend requests and even update your profile picture. The only thing they won’t be able to access are your messages, so your little secrets will be safe.

This is what Facebook calls a memorialised account, a place where your close ones can have a browse and remember you. Memorialised profiles can’t pop up in your timeline to avoid causing any distress by reminding you of the deceased’s birthday for example. Instagram only recently followed the movement and now also offers to memorialise someone’s account after receiving a valid request.

After their research, the OII wanted Facebook to invite historians to find a way to curate our digital data post-mortem. What we leave behind when we pass away should be looked at as heritage to the next generations and a possible way of helping them understand their history. Not only should historians analyse this data, but they should approach it as something different than traditional historical data.

In 2018, researcher Hossein Rahnama started working with an unnamed CEO on a special digital avatar. This one would serve as a virtual ‘consultant’ when the actual CEO passes away. Rahnama is now implementing this idea into an application called Augmented Eternity. By using all your digital data—how you communicate and interact with others online—algorithms can recreate your personality and reactions to anything. This may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but our technology will soon be able to achieve this, so we can sort of live forever on our social media platforms.

At the moment, people’s digital legacy is in the hands of companies like Facebook—private companies guided by what is best commercially and not historically. A single commercial company holding what is now the largest archive of human behaviour should be carefully watched and some thoughts need to be put into how this data should be stored and used after people’s death. Who knows, we might learn a lot from all these likes and embarrassing pictures.

So Facebook, the ball is in your court.

Keep On Reading

By Charlie Sawyer

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has waged yet another war, this time against shorts and hoodies

By Mason Berlinka

Sam Smith cancels Manchester gig midway after only four songs due to serious voice issues

By J'Nae Phillips

Why is gen Z lonely on the internet? A search for community and connection online

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

What the recent arrests of anti-monarchy protesters by the Met police reveal about our core liberties

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Watch video of mother-daughter duo make history with Virgin Galactic as the first Caribbean astronauts

By Charlie Sawyer

Russell Brand sexual assault allegations: Comedians Daniel Sloss and Katherine Ryan back up victims

By Jennifer Raymont

Costume designers for And Just Like That… season two reveal $3 million wardrobe budget

By Jennifer Raymont

Carnaby Street’s best dressed: 5 Londoners on their fashion inspo and biggest style faux pas

By Jennifer Raymont

From Gwyneth Paltrow to HBO’s Succession, quiet luxury is getting louder than ever

By Alma Fabiani

Experts warn of a bed bugs epidemic heading towards the UK

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Polish TV show faces backlash over white performer in blackface impersonating Kendrick Lamar

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Gen Z’s eating habits: Driven by activism or TikTok’s FYP algorithm?

By Alma Fabiani

Rapper Post Malone hit with domestic violence lawsuit from ex-girlfriend’s lawyers

By Emma O'Regan-Reidy

What are acid graphics and why are they all over your TikTok FYP?

By Melissa Rich

The Pedro Pascal obsession: Is the actor immune to the fall?

By Emma O'Regan-Reidy

Gen Z say see ya to the bra. Are there any downsides to going braless?

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

UK citizens to access contraceptive pills without GP sign-off. Is convenience worth the risk?

By Charlie Sawyer

Harry Styles rivals Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow with new line of sex-themed perfumes

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Who needs real love when you’ve got AI chatbots? Inside the worrying world of virtual girlfriends 

By Alma Fabiani

US Republicans launch Purge-like AI-generated ad slamming President Biden’s re-election bid