Facebook creates “look back” videos for the deceased

Facebook on Friday said it is changing the way it handles memorialized Facebook pages in response to requests from people who want to remember loved ones who have died. Until now, Facebook restricted the visibility of pages of members who have passed away to those who had been their “friends” on Facebook. Starting today, the social network will maintain the visibility of the person’s content “as-is.”

Facebook is changing its policies regarding profiles of users who have passed away. Facebook on Friday altered its privacy settings on memorialized profiles so that all fuctions operate as they did when the user was active on the platform. For example, if a user kept his profile public to anyone on Facebook, that is the way his profile will be even after his passing. Previously, when Facebook memorialized a profile, it was only visible to friends of the deceased. “This will allow people to see memorialized profiles in a manner consistent with the deceased person’s expectations of privacy,” members of Facebook’s community operations team wrote in a blog post. “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.”