What happens to your social networks when you die?

The death of a loved one has always been a difficult moment, but with the growth of the internet and social media platforms, families now have to deal with the sometimes complicated rules of digital post-life.

Only 13 percent of people have made any sort of plans regarding their social media account after their death, according to a 2017 survey.

Social media platforms are now realizing that they must have a life-end policy”, experts say.

The technology they've started applying is a good start, but there's still much to be done. One of the main problems, when it comes to planning your digital death and setting up different accounts that we have, is that each platform is different and each requires a special way to bury it.

Experts even recommend that people should document their trusts in a social media testament, and that the latter has set certain basic rules.

In Facebook, for example, users can appoint a legal contact that will then have access to his account after death. That person can then decide whether to take care of the account or close it.

If there is no legal contact, then Facebook turns the account into a memorial when learning about his death. When the account becomes that way, you can no longer log in while it remains visible to others, with whom it is divided as a place to collect memories.

On Twitter, an authorized person or a direct family member should apply for the account to be deactivated. And like Facebook, Google allows users to choose a person responsible for their account after death. The so-called “Incitive Account Manager” is later able to access and delete it.