What becomes of a person’s Twitter account after they die has come into focus this week after a sexting spam bot briefly took over a Twitter account belonging to David Carr, a New York Times media columnist who died last year. …

The incident has put a spotlight on Twitter’s policy for handling accounts of users after they die. On Twitter, immediate family members can provide proof of death and request their loved one’s account be deactivated. The only other alternative is to leave the account as is.

“Please note: We are unable to provide account access to anyone regardless of his or her relationship to the deceased,” Twitter’s policy states, leaving a sort of grey area for family members who want to keep an account up but may worry about the issue of bots.