If you are interested in Social media and the growth thereof, do yourself a favour and read the article:  Are the dead taking over Facebook? A Big Data approach to the future of death online  by Carl J O’ hman.

We all know that the amount of data that gets put onto the internet daily is growing so fast, that our brains simply can’t comprehend it anymore. Now fast forward a couple of years, with IT developing at the rate it is, and the possibilities are endless.

Unfortunately, humans will always have a date of death and your current footprint on your social media will end, when you pass away.  But your profile and historic footprint will remain forever.  Something new to think about when drafting your will is whether you want your social media profiles available to your family and friends after your death.  Who do you want to take responsibility for it and what will be their mandate?  Should they delete all or share memories for you?  A new challenge for a new era.

According to a study at Oxford University the dead will outnumber the living on Facebook within the next 50 years.  No wonder every generation gets their own social media platform.  They get tired of all the dead ones still hanging around.

It is important to remember that your right to privacy expire when you pass on, unless we make specific provision for what is now called our “digital heritage”.

Estate planning must now include sections on who will have access to your passwords, account management and what you want done with your social media profiles and your data.

While preparing for this article I found the following and set up my own.  A Memorialised page is Facebook’s response to the question of what to do with the profile after someone dies. In their Help Section, you can now choose to have your profile deleted or memorialised. If you choose the memorial, you can select a Legacy contact who will then have access to manage that page.

Apparently twitter and Google has its own variation too.

Do yourself and your heirs a favour and amend your will to include your digital heritage and the transfer of responsibility thereof.

Sources: 

Are the dead taking over Facebook? A Big Data approach to the future of death online Carl J O¨ hman