Facebook will now let the profiles of users who have died to continue to update even after their death, the company announced Thursday.

Facebook will let users assign a friend or family member to post on their behalf after they are dead. Facebook is calling the feature "legacy contact," USA Today reported. The legacy contact will be someone that can respond to friend requests, change profile pictures and more even after the user they are representing has died.

Before Facebook made this change, family members would notify Facebook that a person has died. Facebook would keep their profile active but not allow any changes to it. Facebook called it memorializing the accounts.

Facebook users wanted that to change and wanted to post funeral plans or go onto the deceased person's profile and download photos.

Jodi Seth, a Facebook spokesperson, said they received "hundreds of thousands" of requests on the memorialized pages.

Few states have laws based on digital possessions like Facebook profiles, according to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, so it was hard for Facebook to come up with a policy.

A recent poll done by Zogby found that most adults were concerned about what happens to their digital possessions after they die. About 71 percent of the 1,012 adults surveyed said they would prefer for their online communications to remain private after they die, and 43 percent said they would prefer for their private accounts to be deleted.

Adding a legacy contact to a Facebook profile is simple. Members simply go into their settings, then security and then legacy contact.

Once the legacy contact is chosen, that person will be able to perform simple functions like updating information and photos. The legacy contact will not be able to answer private messages, though.

What do you think of Facebook's choice to assign legacy contacts? Is this a good idea or should they just deactivate profiles after someone dies? Leave us a message below and let us know what you think.

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