- Facebook is testing Remembering feature for Instagram.
- The new feature is under development by Instagram and this feature will help the users to pay tribute to their deceased friends and family members.
It is estimated that more than 30 million accounts are present on Facebook belonging to people who died. Facebook has allowed these accounts to stay on the platform for a long time. The company has allowed relatives or close friends of the deceased person to be designated an account on Facebook specifically belonging to a person who died. The person who designated the profile to a deceased person takes control of the profile and can make changes to it. Other users across the Facebook platform are given the option to send tributes to the deceased person via that designated account.
Jane Manchun Wong is a reverse engineering expert and while playing with the back-end code of Instagram app, she disclosed that Facebook is testing the same service for Instagram. Jane shared a screenshot displaying how the new service will display an account related to a deceased person. The in-Memorium service feature of Instagram is still under development and the company has not yet completed creating the account memorialization feature.
In the screenshot shared by Jane Manchun Wong, she elaborated how Instagram will display the account belonging to a dead person. In the screenshot we can see that Instagram says ‘Remembering Jane Manchun Wong’ under Jane’s account but it is just an illustration of the new account memorialization feature.
These memorialized accounts will be a place to remember the deceased persons and pay tributes to them. According to Instagram, it will also be a place to remember and celebrate the events of the deceased person’s life.
Instagram is working on account memorialization— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) April 20, 2020
disclaimer: I’m not actually dead, only in the inside pic.twitter.com/DVIDLLwTAk
When Jane shared the screenshot on Twitter, Instagram replied to that tweet confirming the news. The tweet from Instagram Comms says that the company is making these changes and working on the memorialization feature to help people understand if the account belongs to a person who is alive or passed away. Instagram ended the tweet by saying that the platform will share more details regarding the account memorialization service at a later time.
During this unfortunate time of mass death when the coronavirus is causing several deaths every day across the globe, this type of service will likely be used by a lot of people to pay tribute to their friends or family members who passed away. Some people may also pay tribute to their heroes with the help of this account memorialization feature. Instagram has not yet confirmed when the account memorialization feature will be rolled out for public use but surely the platform is actively working on the said feature. We expect Instagram to release the new account memorialization feature sooner rather than later.
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