Whether the relatives of a deceased person would prefer to clean up his (or her) online presence or save his (or her) tweets for eternity, Twitter's now prepared to help them act.  A new "How to Contact Twitter About a Deceased User" protocol has been established.

Many people are sure to welcome this move.  Certain dead users' tweets might be a little on the embarrassing side, after all; imagine if someone wandered in front of a bus minutes after telling the world he'd set a new personal best in terms of downing vodka.

This will also help address the awkwardness of Twitter recommending that active users follow deceased individuals.

The single issue is that Twitter only provides two options.  A post in its Help Center explained, "If we are notified that a Twitter user has passed away, we can remove their account or assist family members in saving a backup of their public Tweets."  Some sort of memorial account alternative would be nice.

Twitter at least made the notification process pretty simple, though.  A message relaying a living person's name, contact information, and relationship to the deceased, along with the user name of the account in question and evidence of the departed person's death, is all that's necessary.  And it's possible to provide that info by email, snail mail, or fax.

A big hat tip goes to Adele McAlear, who appears to have prompted Twitter to create the new policy.