Facebook memorial accounts: privacy settings will be left as-is

Facebook announced recently that the company has made a change in the way that legacy or memorialized accounts of deceased Facebook users are viewed. Previously, when an account was being memorialized, the privacy setting of the account was set to friends-only, regardless of how the person had their profile viewable in the past.

Now, the privacy settings on memorialized Facebook accounts will be left as-is, reflecting the person’s comfort with privacy.

Additionally, those with loved ones who have passed away can request that a Look Back video can be made from their Facebook profile.

Facebook announced this is in a Newsroom post:

Based on conversations inspired by these questions, we’ve decided to make an important change to how we preserve legacies on Facebook. Up to now, when a person’s account was memorialized, we restricted its visibility to friends-only. This meant that people could no longer see the account or any of its content unless they were Facebook friends with the person who passed away. Starting today, we will maintain the visibility of a person’s content as-is. This will allow people to see memorialized profiles in a manner consistent with the deceased person’s expectations of privacy. We are respecting the choices a person made in life while giving their extended community of family and friends ongoing visibility to the same content they could always see.