Changes to Facebook will make death easier

Facebook is finally taking death seriously and has introduced some serious changes as to how it handles “Memorialised accounts”.

In an announcement on their newsroom, the company said: “People turn to Facebook to find community during life’s highs and lows. We know the loss of a friend or family member can be devastating — and we want Facebook to be a place where people can support each other while honouring the memory of their loved ones.”

The “Memorialised” profile option allows profiles to stay as they were before the user died, while also providing a place for friends and relatives to share and read memories and other posts.

It works by allowing users to assign “legacy contacts”, who will be given the power to first convert a profile to a memorialised one, and then to moderate the comments left on the site from thereon out.

In order to maintain the profile as it was in life, these comments left after death will now appear on a new “tributes section” on memorialised profiles. This is a separate tab where friends and family can share posts and memories without altering the original profile.

Most importantly, however, Memorialised profiles will now no longer appear in inappropriate places, like recommendations for event invitations or on the automatically generated list of birthday reminders.

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