Best Results Organizing

ANTICIPATE THE FUTURE

An essential part of organizing your paper and information involves thinking wisely about the future. It requires anticipating what might (or will) happen and taking precautions to make things less problematic when the possible, probable, or guaranteed happens. This is why so many Paper Doll posts deal with organizing your information to pay your taxes or cope with illnesses or prepare for the worst-case scenario.

Because we don’t know when we might get ill, or be unable to handle our financial affairs, or shuffle off this mortal coil, there are documents and actions for ensuring that others will be able to take care of what’s necessary. Some essential posts from the Paper Doll vault for accomplishing these tasks include:

How to Create, Organize, and Safeguard 5 Essential Legal and Estate Documents

The Professor and Mary Ann: 8 Other Essential Documents You Need To Create

Paper Doll’s 10-Minute Tasks to Make Difficult Moments Easier

Paper Doll’s Ultimate Guide to Getting a Document Notarized

A New VIP: A Form You Didn’t Know You Needed

Cross-Training for Families: Organize for All Eventualities

In most cases, attention is focused on tangible, paper documents. However, there are some key digital precautions that everyone should take.

HOW TO SECURE YOUR DIGITAL SOCIAL LEGACY

Until the last few decades, digital assets weren’t a matter for much concern beyond ensuring that your loved ones could access your computer. Thirty years ago, most people did not even have email. It was 1995 before Wells Fargo was one of the first financial institutions to offer online banking, and most people have only needed online credentials for their most important financial accounts in the last 15-20 years.

But then there’s social media. It’s hard for younger people to believe, but Friendster, one of the first social media platforms, didn’t start until 2002. MySpace followed in 2003, and Facebook launched in 2004, but only to college students. Personally, I started on Twitter and Facebook in 2008, and platforms like Instagram and TikTok are still in their relative infancy. (Of course, each social media platform is generally taken up by younger people before its popularity spreads.)

So, it’s understandable that, unlike making sure your loved ones or executor of your will can access your checking and investment accounts to deal with your financial legacy, most individuals have spent little time thinking about handling digital social legacies.

Perhaps you’re thinking you’ll just abandon your accounts, leaving a digital ghost town. You’ll be gone, so who cares? Right? Wrong.

First, social media accounts are always ripe for hacking; you don’t want your account and image taken over by ne’er-do-wells who might prey on unsuspecting friends or followers by faking your identity. Second, social media accounts contain a wide variety of personal information, personal and family history, and photos, things that you want your loved ones to be able to control.

If you operate a business, your social media accounts for your company are almost certainly tied to your personal accounts. (For example, you can’t have a business page on Facebook without first having a personal profile.) This means that the continuity of your company’s marketing is dependent upon control over your own social media.

And finally, there’s a personal legacy to consider. You might want to keep your accounts up, as is, after you depart for all eternity (or at least until a megalomaniacal billionaire destroys your favorite platform). But you might prefer to have it taken down so that links to it cannot be used to harm your good name or be engaged in unseemly online activity. It’s tricky.

However, none of your wishes can be followed if your loved ones lack control over your social media platforms. To that end, let’s look at how you can ensure your digital social legacy is secure.

Put Your Legacy in Good Hands

Before you consider the what, you need to select the who, in terms of whom do you want to put in charge of your digital social legacy? This may or may not be the same person to whom you’d give your Power of Attorney or have as the executor of your will or designate to be guardian of your children.

Whether you call them your digital executor, digital heir, representative, or designee, you need to ask yourself:

• Whom do you trust to carry out your wishes, or anticipate your preferences if you leave no instructions? What you think you’d want in 2023 may not include things that will be unimaginable until 2043.
• With whom will you still be in close contact by the time a digital social legacy has to be managed? It’s hard to believe, but your bestie from college may be someone you haven’t spoken to in a decade by the time you are in your 40’s. One of your closest friends in your 60’s may, sadly, not be in the world (let alone your world) when you’re all in your 80’s.
• To whom are you comfortable giving access to private conversations? You haven’t necessary said or done anything in your Twitter DMs or Facebook chats that would bring shame on your family, but maybe you went through a period where you said unkind things about your ex-spouse or had some spicy conversations? You might not want your current significant other or adult children to read everything in your private social media inbox.
• Which of your friends is likely to stay current enough with technology to be able to handle your digital legacy? Your BFF may meet all the above criteria but not know a QR code from Krispy Kreme, or two-factor authentication from two-for-one taco night. Digital skills matter.

Inventory Your Digital Social Assets

Make an inventory of your social media assets. I’ve previously written about having a general digital asset inventory. Obviously, you’ll make sure the executor of your will has access to all of your financial assets (accounts for banks, brokerage houses, etc.), and next week’s post will look at a wider array of digital assets related to your personal and professional life.

For this, you’ll need  organized list or spreadsheet of all of your social media platforms indicating:

• The name of the platform (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, etc.)
• The locations where you access it (phone, computer, tablet, etc.)
• Your screen name
• Your login credentials* or the location where you keep them

* Your login credentials should change frequently, which means you may need to update this information often. Rather than keeping your logins on paper or an unlocked spreadsheet, see if your digital password manager offers emergency account access. This allows you to set access for an individual’s email address if something happens to you. 

They can put in their credentials (as set by you), and you’ll be notified by email that they made an access attempt. If you’re still around, you’ll say, “Eeek! Why is the lothario I met on a cruise and married three days later trying to access my digital password manager?! I’m shutting this down and calling my attorney!” But if you take no action — because action is no longer something of which you’re capable — then they’ll gain access and be able to oversee handling/dismantling your accounts.

Once you figure out who is going to handle your digital social legacy, and have arranged for them to know where your accounts exist, there are different protocols for each platform.

Facebook Digital Legacy

One of the good things Mark Zuckerberg and company did was establish the idea of creating a Facebook legacy contact. Your legacy contact can be assigned to manage your main profile after you pass away, assuming the page has been memorialized. (You should set your memorialization preferences in your account. Anyone can request that a page be memorialized. If a request is put in, Facebook goes through a process of verifying that the person has passed away.)

A few notes: first, legacy contacts only apply to your main Facebook profile. Second, profiles don’t have to be memorialized. You can choose to have your profile deleted after you’re gone. Finally, if your legacy contact somehow doesn’t know you’ve passed but someone else requests that Facebook memorializes your account, your legacy contact will be notified by email and be able to set the rest of the process in motion.

Legacy contacts can’t actually log into your account, and thus can’t read any of your messages. They also can’t remove any of your friends or make new friend requests. A Facebook legacy contact isn’t pretending to be you, just managing your account on your behalf.

What can your Facebook legacy contact do?

• Download a copy of what you’ve shared on Facebook, assuming you’ve turned this feature on. This is a nice way to create an archive of your digital life to pass down through your family, and guarantees access to photos and information even if Facebook eventually ceases to exist. (Note, if your digital designee is just logging in with your credentials, they can also download your archive, as just you can do at any time.)
• Write a pinned post for your profile. This might be used to inform others that you’ve passed, share a final message, provide details about a memorial service, or otherwise speak to issues related to your legacy.
• Update the cover photo and profile picture for your account. Consider discussing this, in advance, with your legacy contact or revisit this issue every few years, leaving instructions in a digital will where you might have a digital executor handle such things.
• Request the removal of your Facebook account after a memorial period.

Also, be aware that your legacy contact can view all of your posts, even if you’ve ever created a post with the privacy set to Only Me. (I suspect most people are less likely to have “Only Me” posts where secret, private stuff exists. I mean, who would bother posting that to Facebook only to hide it? I assume most people use Only Me posts to draft posts, then forget to change the privacy setting. No? Just me?)

To add a legacy contact to your main Facebook profile, you can try to follow the official instructions here. There are instructions for whether you’re using a computer browser, iPhone app, or Android app, and there’s a “More” dropdown for help with the iPad app, mobile browsers, or Facebook “Lite.” The variety is the good news. The bad news? They’re out of date.

Unfortunately, when I painstakingly followed Facebook’s instructions for the computer browser (so I could verify them for you), I found that the settings Facebook said would be visible were not. Blerg.

I selected Settings & Privacy, then clicked Settings, and then was supposed to see General Profile Settings, from which I was to locate Memorialization Settings. But I never saw General Profile Settings, and none of the options I clicked yielded anything that looked like that. Ugh!

Sooooo, I followed the iPhone settings, and they were also not exact. However, I was able to noodle my way to what I needed, so I’m going to give you my own directions for using the iOS app to set your memorialization and legacy contact settings (and hope maybe Facebook’s Android directions are correct). 

• Click on your face/avatar on the bottom right of the iOS Facebook app.
• Scroll down to Settings & Privacy and then tap on Settings.
• You’ll see the logo for Meta (Facebook’s parent company) and then Accounts Center. The first option is “Personal details.” Tap that. Weirdly, this will open the actual Accounts Center on a fresh screen. 
• Scroll down to Personal Details (yes, again), and on the resulting page, click on Account Ownership and Control.
• You will see “Memorialization” or “Deactivation or Deletion” as options. Select Memorialization. On the resulting page, you should be able to select Memorialization and your legacy contact. I’d set mine years ago, so my only options were to delete or change what I’d already created.

It’s frustrating that Facebook doesn’t make this easier, and more frustrating that their instruction pages fail to keep pace with their platform changes. Imagine how much more frustrating it would be if you waited decades and tried to deal with this while in poor health or declining cognitive capacity! 

Twitter (X) Digital Legacy

Twitter has become X (but almost nobody is actually calling it that); the documentation still says Twitter. And, unfortunately, Twitter/X does not have a formal legacy contact. Instead, your digital executor or representative will have to contact Twitter directly to delete your account. (Twitter does not have memorialized accounts.)

Twitter/X is very clear that, “We are unable to provide account access to anyone regardless of their relationship to the deceased.” So, if you don’t provide login credentials for your account to your loved ones, they will not be able to archive your posts. If there’s any chance that your family will want to archive the content of your account, they should follow these steps:

1. On your Twitter/X account page, navigate to settings. (In the browser, click on “More” at the bottom of the left-side column, and Settings & Support will be your last option. In iOS, click on your face/avatar, scroll down, and Settings & Support will be the last option.)
2. Click on Settings and Privacy.
3. Click on Your Account.
4. Click on Download an Archive of Your Data. You may have to re-confirm your password or send a code shared to you by email or text.

Note: if your designee has access to your account credentials to do all of the above, they can also follow steps 1-3 above and then select Deactivate Your Account.

To close your Twitter/X account (without access to login credentials), someone will need to submit a request for the removal of a deceased user’s account. 

They’ll need to go to the Twitter deactivation page and select “I need help deactivating and account owned by a person who is incapacitated, or deceased” and then select “The owner of the account is deceased.” They’ll then fill in the remainder of the form with their name and contact information, relationship to you (the account owner), and the Twitter account name.  

Allegedly (because we’ve all heard stories about how things are going at Twitter/X these days), your designee will be emailed instructions for providing more details, including information about themselves (including proof of identification) and a copy of the death certificate, in order to process deletion of the account.

Instagram Digital Legacy

Instagram is a Facebook-owned platform, so you have the same options as with Facebook, to have your account memorialized or deleted after you pass away.

Mystifyingly, however, Instagram does not allow you to make your selections while you are still living! Rather, to have your Instagram account memorialized or removed, if your designees does not have access to your login credentials, they’ll have to follow a similar process to Twitter’s and furnish proof that they are your verified representative and that you have passed on.

This page explains how to request memorializing an Instagram account. They will start by filling out this Instagram form for memorialization or this form for deletion and provide information about themselves and the deceased, including uploading a copy of a death certificate.

As with other platforms, if your designee has access to your login credentials, they can log in as you to download and archive your entire account for posterity. Of course, as with most social accounts, you can do this periodically on your own. I don’t really use Instagram, so my entire account activity is visible on one screen.

TikTok Digital Legacy

If you only use TikTok as a source of viewable entertainment, you may not care what happens with your account. Still, I’d advise you to have your digital executor log in with your credentials and close your account via these steps:

1. Tap your Profile icon at the bottom right of the screen.
2. Now tap the three horizontal lines (sometimes colloquially called the hamburger) at the top right of the screen. 
3. Select Settings and Privacy.
4. Select Account. (The official instructions say to tap “Manage Your Account” but that appears to be an outdated choice.)
5. Select Deactivate or Delete Your Account and confirm your selection.

On that same account screen, the next option down lets you choose Download Your Data; they’ll get an archive of your profile, activity, and app settings. However, the format options are TXT (human-readable) or JSON (machine-readable) files, so your loved ones will be able to see random comments you made, but not the cute videos you watched.

If you are a TikTok creator, note that there are no memorialization options. Your digital legacy contact can (as described above) act as you, with your credentials. It’s not uncommon to see someone’s parent or spouse appear on TikTok, explaining that the account holder has passed away. However, without access to those credentials, there’s no way to alert someone’s TikTok followers and fans that they are gone.

This is problematic because many TikTok creators use their accounts to earn money. Left unattended, an account (and the resultant earnings) could be hacked, and imposters could use the account to scam followers. To prevent this, and to ensure any monetization of existing videos is protected, this is one account where making sure your loved ones have your credentials and can access your account may protect not only your creative legacy, but your financial one as well.

LinkedIn Legacy Contact

Perhaps because LinkedIn is designed for professionals, you’d expect that more thought would be put into protecting account-holders’ legacies. I was disappointed, however, to find out that LinkedIn does not allow you to set a legacy contact in advance, nor can you arrange for page memorialization for yourself.

(This is LinkedIn’s official example of a memorialized account. Research indicates, and I hope, that this is not an actual person’s memorialized account.)

Your designee can contact LinkedIn, however, to arrange to memorialize your profile or close it. For either option, they must fill in a form verifying their standing to act on your behalf and providing proof of your passing.

It’s important to note that unlike (for example) Facebook’s memorialization practice, a legacy contact or representative can’t add a tribute or post explaining what has transpired. Instead, LinkedIn locks the account.

Still, there are significant benefits to LinkedIn’s memorialization process. They place a memorialization badge on the profile page as a symbol of remembrance. They also cancel all LinkedIn products (except Apple-related subscriptions), terminate connections to third-party services and close mobile and desktop sessions (so nobody can sneak into the deceased’s office or home computer to access account information).

LinkedIn also stops sending notifications to the decedent (so the loved one handling their email won’t have to deal with junk mail) and ceases sending notifications about them (re: birthdays, work anniversaries, etc.) to members of their network. The person who died will stop popping up in automated sections of the site, like “People you may know” and “recommended connections.” If you’ve ever been startled to see the name and likeness of someone who has passed away show up on your Facebook or Twitter account unexpectedly, you know how much a relief LinkedIn’s approach could be.

JUST THE BEGINNING

Social media accounts are just the beginning of your non-financial digital legacy. Next time, we’re going to look at how you can set up your Legacy Contact for your Apple ID account and an Inactive Account Manager (and Trusted Contact) for your Google accounts. 

I’ll also share a bevy of resources for helping you manage accounts for those who have passed and make things easier for directing your own digital legacy.