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Facebook is now letting users nominate a friend to take over their accounts if they die.
The person is dubbed your ‘legacy contact’, and will ensure your Facebook page doesn’t waste away into nothingness, even if your corpse does.
If having a pal in charge of your social networking doesn’t seem right to you, Facebook also gives the option for your page to automatically delete itself.
The service is only available to US users for now – that’s probably to keep a wraps on the initial number of deaths, we’d imagine.
Facebook says it will roll out the service to other countries if the US trial is successful.
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It’s worth mentioning that legacy contacts won’t have unbridled access to your account.
Legacy contacts will, for instance, be able to change your profile picture, accept new friend requests, and pin announcements on your timeline.
They won’t be able to view private messages or post as your account however, likely to prevent any post-mortem misdeeds.
To gain access, legacy contacts will need to provide sufficient notice to Facebook of your death.
Prior to this new system, Facebook would offer to freeze accounts after death, but not redirect control.