Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

When you die, your Facebook can live on without you. The platform offers the option to your family members to either delete or archive your account as a “memorial page.” (Family members will need to provide documentation to Facebook in order to make any changes to your account.) Now, Facebook is adding a new feature that will allow people to continue posting on your memorialized page in tribute.

From TechCrunch:

Depending on a memorialized account’s privacy settings, friends can currently still post on its timeline, including in the comments of posts the person made before they died. If a memorialized account has a Tributes section, however, posts made after the day it was memorialized (which prevents anyone else from logging in) will be placed there.

Facebook also lets you, before you die, indicate which of your friends you want to be your “legacy contacts.” These friends will be able to moderate the tribute comments, though they do not have the ability to add or remove friends or read your direct messages.

Facebook page as formal memorial is a nice concept, in theory. Friends and families who have lost people have long created independent Facebook pages or groups where they can share memories and grieve and celebrate life. But the net good here only exists in a perfect world where Facebook doesn’t track your every bit of information and sell ads. I don’t necessarily want the company to know that I am feeling alone or emotional or sad, and I certainly don’t need them telling that to companies trying to sell me on vacations or talk-therapy apps or fitness plans or medication.

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