Most of these users will likely belong to Asia and Africa, the study said.
Around 4.9 billion 'dead profiles' will be added to Facebook's network by the year 2100 if the social media giant continues to grow at its current rate, according to a study done by researchers at Oxford University.
Even if Facebook user numbers saw no growth during that period, the number of deceased users would hit 1.4 billion, the study claimed.
Most of these users will likely belong to Asia and Africa, the study said. There is a possibility that number of deceased users on the platform will outnumber the living.
"We argue that an exclusively commercial approach to data preservation poses important ethical and political risks that demand urgent consideration," the researchers said.
The researchers have taken two scenarios into account. One is based on minimal growth of the social media platform, while the other assumes an annual growth of 13 percent.
The study calculated mortality based on data from United Nations.
As of the end of first quarter of 2019, Facebook has 2.3 billion monthly active users. Of this, 19 percent are in the 25-34 age group, while 10 percent are in the 35-44 age group.
In April, Facebook launched a tribute tab for memorialised accounts. Only legacy contacts can memorialise an account, after which “Remembering” appears next to the user’s name.
"Memorialised profiles don't appear in public spaces such as in suggestions for People You May Know, ads or birthday reminders," as per Facebook’s Help Centre.
The social media platform had introduced the legacy contacts feature in 2015, which lets users nominate another user to manage the account after their death.
Legacy contacts can manage tags, respond to friend requests, update the profile picture and request deletion of an account.
But they cannot view personal messages, unfriend users or make new friend requests.
