What happens to your social media account in its afterlife?

Marija lost her husband five years ago but Meta won't memorialise his Facebook account Sun 28 Jun 2026 at 1:13pm It's been five years since Marija Milisavljević lost the person she says could "light up a room". Her husband of eight years died from leukaemia in 2021. "I miss everything about him, I miss his presence… just the comfort of having my person in the room," she said. Like any grieving loved one, Ms Milisavljević tried to salvage mementos that were left behind. One of those things happened to be a Facebook account. Ms Milisavljević said she attempted to memorialise the now inactive social media account, but her applications to do so never saw the light of day. Memorialising an account involves declaring that an account user has died, to preserve or close down the account entirely. "I've attempted a few times," she said. "I kind of gave up." Digital afterlife How often do people think about their social media afterlife? According to Bjørn Nansen, an associate professor in the school of computing and information systems at the University of Melbourne, not often enough. "It still remains a pretty marginal thing," he said. Dr Nansen said one of the main risks of not managing a digital legacy prior to death was inaccessibility. That means losing traces of a person's online identity. Those virtual assets could hold sentimental or even monetary value including videos on social media, cryptocurrencies, email or chat threads, website domains or music playlists. For Ms Milisavljević it's all sentimental but important, nevertheless. "There is a real stress over not being able to keep the memories alive,"she said. Dr Nansen said managing one's digital asset should be considered "life admin". "You need to think ahead," he said. "But then obviously it also touches on death, which people don't want to think about — their own demise." It's a sentiment shared by wills and estate lawyer Lisa Berte, who said the lack of awareness could create issues for people close to the deceased. "People aren't quite aware that these issues can become an issue once you pass away," Ms Berte said. "We're not really focused so much on our social media as being something of worth of monetary value. "So, we don't really turn our mind to that when we're estate planning." A memorialised account Death is unavoidable, and social media platforms are aware of it. Facebook's parent company, Meta, which reportedly has around 3 billion users, gives account holders the option to decide what happens to a profile when the user passes. In its afterlife, a personal account becomes a memorialised account. Meanwhile, other platforms including LinkedIn, Yahoo and X (formerly Twitter) depend on other users to report a deceased person's account before memorialising or disabling them. Facebook was ahead of most platforms, introducing memorialisation in 2009. But there's a catch: account users need to assign a "legacy contact" to verify their death. This needs to be organised before their actual death. With no legacy contact assigned for the account, Ms Milisavljević's options were limited. "[His death] was quite sudden, like he was 34," she said. "When you're that ill, you don't really think about what's going to come next, he's just trying to survive." She sent through required documents to Facebook, including a death certificate, to prove her husband had died and that she was his next of kin. She never heard back. "You have to put in an application and then you wait for an e-mail [from Facebook]," she said. "I've never seen one come through.You're kind of at a standstill. "It's really heartbreaking to lose a part of them that is still here." The loophole Ms Berte, who works at Melbourne-based law firm Kalus Kenny Intelex, said digital estate management can be "very hard" to navigate, even more so when the laws "haven't kept up". Under Victorian property laws, an executor could be assigned through a will to manage the property and assets left by a deceased person. In Facebook terms, that person is equivalent to the legacy contact. According to Ms Berte, when someone doesn't have a will, and therefore no assigned executor, existing laws would intervene. "When you don't have a will, the law determines who can make an application to be in control of your estate," she said. "Our laws haven't kept up with imposing an obligation on these [social media] companies to recognise the authority of your executor… this is a bit of a loophole in the law at the moment. "It is beholden to the companies and their policies." A spokesperson for the eSafety Commissioner said the government agency does not regulate the memorialisation of deceased accounts. "We encourage tech platforms to provide clear, accessible and responsive support pathways for families navigating these situations," the spokesperson said. "eSafety may be able to assist in circumstances where a deceased person's account has been accessed and used in ways that cause online harm to others." An easier process After years of back and forth with Meta, Ms Milisavljević may have given up, but said she will not forget. Now happily re-married, she wants Facebook to make the process of memorialising an account easier for grieving families. "Don't make it harder [for people] who are already grieving and going through a tough time,"she said. Ms Berte said Meta-run platforms are just "the tip of the iceberg" when it comes to digital assets that people might want to preserve. "Today, many people have digital photo libraries stored in iCloud, messaging apps with treasured conversations, online investment accounts, loyalty programs," she said. "And now with the increasing use of AI, AI accounts containing years of carefully crafted personal and professional work." The ABC contacted Meta about Ms Milisavljević's case and why her memorialisation application has not been approved, but the company declined to comment. Instead, Meta redirected the ABC to a page where users can lodge memorialisation requests. "You can block them [the account], you can unfriend them, you can report the page, but you can't memorialise it," Ms Milisavljević said. "For a platform that is designed or meant to be designed for human interaction, it's really not created for real humans."