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Social Media Accounts Part of Deceased Oklahomans' Estates
An anonymous reader writes "Estate executors or administrators in Oklahoma have the power to access, administer or terminate the online social media accounts of the deceased, according to a new state law. '"The number of people who use Facebook today is almost equal to the population of the United States. When a person dies, someone needs to have legal access to their accounts to wrap up any unfinished business, close out the account if necessary or carry out specific instructions the deceased left in their will," Kiesel said.'"
I think they'll probably go along with it. Facebook has an increasing awkwardness problem with the accounts of dead people, and has made some efforts to mitigate it via things like "memorializing" pages. To the extent that someone wants to make "figure out what to do with the dead person's Facebook account" part of the estate-resolution process, it basically takes the problem off Facebook's hands and passes it to someone else.
The main stumbling block I can think of is how to set up a procedure for handing off an account. You have to verify that the person in question really is authorized to execute the deceased's estate, and that procedure might vary from state to state or country to country, which might cause some administrative hassles for Facebook.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It has been very hard in the past for members of the deceased to close down their social networking accounts, or even post a message with the funeral information. This law should give them the ability to manage the accounts accordingly.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
More interestingly (to me, since I'm not dead (yet)), if an account is part of an estate in death, then how does that affect its status in life? Is it *my* property? And if so, what rights do I have to it beyond what Facebook provides in the license agreement? And if it's not my property in life, then how can it possibly be part of my estate in death?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Of course there are people here. This is where all the people from the coasts go when they realize that the job market where they are sucks, the people are all jerks, and it costs too much to live there.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
To my darling wife I bequeath my ebay(tm) account with the 100,000+ power seller star status. To my loved sister I bequeath my facebook(tm) account with 4999 friends and 300,000 acre strips of land in Farmville(tm). Finally to my brother who has helped me weather all the storms of my life I bequeath my WOW account with the Shadow Priest with the 6600 gear rating.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle