Facebook rolling out Tributes section for deceased users

MANILA, Philippines – Facebook is rolling out a new Tributes section on the pages of deceased users where contacts can leave messages.

The new section is meant to allow friends, family, and other loved ones to remember and pay tribute to the deceased user.

On Facebook, a user can either choose a legacy contact who can look after their account or have the account permanently deleted when they die. If they choose the former, the account becomes what Facebook calls a memorialized account. The word “Remembering” is shown next to the person’s name once it’s memorialized. 

Before having the Tributes section, messages left by other users simply appeared on the memorialized account’s primary feed. Now these messages go directly to the Tributes section, where a legacy contact may do one of the following, according to Facebook:

• Change who can see and who can post tributes.

• Delete tribute posts.

• Change who can see posts that their loved one is tagged in.

• Remove tags of their loved one that someone else has posted.

• If the account holder had turned on timeline review, the legacy contact will be able to turn off the requirement to review posts and tags before they appear in the Tributes section.

Facebook didn’t specify how fast the rollout would be, but simply said that it’s “working to bring this feature to everyone on Facebook, but you might not see it on all memorialized profiles yet.” – Rappler.com