What do people do with SM accounts of those who passed?

[RandomNC2]

I just had a ‘memory’ of a post from years ago pop up on my SM of someone who passed. Really sad circumstances but the friendship circle from that time was devastated when it happened. I’m no longer part of this circle but I can imagine this pops up for them too (look back at this with this person). None of the events surrounding this were peaceful and I can’t imagine people thinking ‘oh that’s a sweet memory, I was to look back and reminisce of the good times’. I can only imagine it quite triggering.

I don’t think in this particular case the family would do anything to suspend this account but makes me wonder if that’s the reality now as we get older? Do people generally try to flag these accounts (I think on Facebook a family member can say this person is no longer here so it limits the notifications)? Do we just learn to get by with these memories popping up?

The person who has memorialised the account can have control of the settings, depending on how it's been done.

I'm actually shocked that FB allowed the order of service to be used. My recollection was that they required either the death certificate or an obituary.

Ah. I've just had a look and now they're allowing a "memorial card" as proof that the person has died.

I have control of my late husband's account and can control who sees the posts etc. There's another type of account where it is basically just frozen - that must be what was done with your FIL's. I'm sorry. FB really need to improve their security.

After my husband died, on his birthday I put up a picture of his that I'd found, together with a link to a recording of him singing.

I changed the settings so that friends of friends could see the posts. To my horror, a very short time after I had done that, everything disappeared.

I realised that someone might have reported the posts as 'unwelcome'. I systematically blocked those who I suspected might have reported the posts - starting with 'friends of 'friends'. All the posts came back, except for one that had been shared by one of the people whom I'd blocked.

You can choose what happens to your FB account after you die. My sister chose to get hers deleted so someone tried to memorialise it and they couldn’t and it automatically disappeared. She did a lot of research on this and she doesn’t have much of an online footprint.

A friend of mine, died about 10 years ago when he was only 39. His Facebook is still running, his dad (who isn't from the UK) logs in and occasionally posts on it. I think he likes to keep in touch with his son's friends. Now I quite like being reminded of my friend now and then and saying hello to his Dad and sharing some memories.