SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS AND INHERITANCE

Social Media Accounts And Inheritance Issues

Everyone eventually dies; some of us sooner than others. Even if you are young, an accident can shorten your life. Currently, there is no common law rights associated with the social media accounts of a deceased person. Therefore, it is a good idea to put into your will a clause which bequeaths the right to take control of your social media accounts to a person you trust.

Facebook has already faced this issue so many times that they have created a link on your Facebook page to name a legacy contact. Take a minute right now to do this by going to Settings then click Security and then click the Legacy Contact tab. At that point you can either assign a person you trust to control this account, or ask Facebook to simply delete it upon your death. I, myself, gave control to someone so that they could choose to create a page in my memory before deleting it forever at the appropriate time.

As I said above, even young people can die accidentally, so please don’t ignore this advice.