Cleaning up the social media graveyard

Dear s.e.,

I'm hoping you can settle a family argument. My uncle died in May and we're currently fighting over what to do with his social media accounts. He was very active, especially on Facebook. Some of my family thinks we should leave his accounts up, but others want to take them down.

I'm the executor, so technically I can do whatever I want, and I know people are going to be mad either way, but I could really use some perspective here.

— To Delete or Not to Delete?

Hey there Delete,

I'm sorry for your loss, and I hope that your uncle left things in reasonably good shape to help you honor his wishes and memory. (Although it sounds like it sure would have been helpful for him to tell you what he wanted you to do with his social media accounts!) Wrapping up an estate can be a lot of work even without weird little things like this and executors so often wind up in these awkward positions where no one is going to be happy about what they choose, BUT the person who died clearly trusted them to be their representative.

First, a logistical question: Do you have access to his accounts? And do you know where his various accounts are? It sounds like you're aware of some possible accounts outside of Facebook, but is he a guy who might have had alts or used some weird random service you weren't aware of? One issue that's coming up a lot right now is that people die and friends, families, and/or executors can't get into their computers and/or phones and thus can't even access things like their email, social media, etc, in which case this whole issue may be either a moot point or one that is a lot more complicated to resolve than Team Delete may realize.

If the answer is "no, I do not have access," you gotta break the bad news to Team Delete: His accounts are just going to stay up, zombie-like, until the platform closes or he gets purged for inactivity. There are some platforms that may allow you to claim a legacy account with proof of identity, but the process can be annoying and time consuming and is, again, not something you should deal with right now. (If you have a helper, you should set that person on rounding up that list of accounts and figuring out what various platform policies are about posthumous access.)

Assuming you do have access, for now, I am on team "keep the social media accounts up," for a few reasons.

The first and probably most obvious reason I'm in favor of leaving them up is that if you do—whether you let them stay public or private them—it's not an irrevocable decision. You can change the access settings or delete them later. You (and some family, at least) are making a lot of big decisions that are very time-limited right now while also grieving, and this is a good one to punt down the road.

For the time being, some platforms explicitly allow you to convert social media accounts to a legacy account, as mentioned above and is certainly the case with his beloved Facebook. Additionally, there's a strong argument for making a social media account static by closing replies and limiting other engagement so you don't feel like you need to moderate a gajillion RIP, Dave comments. That will create some breathing room for the other things in your life.

The second is that social media accounts can be such a capsule of our lives, and a community gathering place for those who knew people primarily (or only) virtually, or are really far away and can't be in community in person. It's akin, in some ways, to a photo album, capturing things someone wanted to share about their life, whether it's photos of a vacation or big news in their life or a TikTok video that was particularly funny or insightful. People present these interesting curated parts of themselves on social media, creating their own memorials, and there is something very lovely about that.

I sometimes find it comforting to visit friends' social media to remember them, look through old projects, or try to try to track something down. If we sent direct messages, having their account up means I can go back into those and remember those conversations, in much the same way that I might go through old texts or letters. And occasionally, I haven't even known that someone died, and I found out after checking their social media when I got concerned that I hadn't heard from them in a while—leaving their account up with a note about the death was really helpful. In that sense, I appreciate their executors for leaving those accounts up. It's easy to think of the internet as something so permanent, but as many people are learning, that's not necessarily the case, and so many parts of ourselves and our history are being erased.

The third is just a practical one: People may not know your uncle is dead and could try to reach him via his social media with something you need to know about, or people might know that he's dead, need to reach the family, and not know how to do it, so they might turn to his social media or email address to do so. People lead such complicated, diverse lives and sometimes there are entire parts of themselves that we don't know about—leaving avenues of communication up could mean allowing you to see a different side of your uncle. It might also mean that someone knows how to contact you with messages about things they borrowed that they want to return; projects they were working on with your uncle; requests to reprint or reuse his art/writing/etc; or to flag the location of personal effects or property you might not be aware of. Something surprising—good or bad!—might make its way to you via his posthumous presence, and leaving his accounts up keeps that door open.

No matter what the family decides to do, do download an archive of his posts and media. I've talked to too many people with regrets about hastily deleting someone's social media while they're grieving, and then realizing that they inadvertently also deleted photos, video, and other memories that they won't be able to retrieve. And, of course, if his account is terminated for inactivity or the platform goes down, that content will also disappear. Download that archive, make sure you can actually open it, and put it in a safe place. It will be there when you want to look at it, whether that's in weeks, months, or years.

Tell your family I said...

Maybe now isn't the best moment to make this call!

And for readers...don't let this happen to you. On top of a will, make sure you leave a detailed list of things like this and express your wishes for your executor, and tell your friends and family to do the same. I have a (free!) fillable template you might find helpful for things like making sure your executor knows where your money is, how to get into your accounts, what's autobilling, and so much more.