TWITTER HAS PROMISED to change its policies after Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda was targeted by trolls.
The actor was found dead on Monday at the age of 63 after taking his own life.
On Wednesday, Zelda was forced to quit Twitter after trolls bombarded her with bullying tweets and disturbing Photoshopped photos of her late father.
She appealed to her followers to report the offending users, tweeting: “I’m shaking. I can’t. Please. Twitter requires a link and I won’t open it. Don’t either. Please.”
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The accounts responsible for the majority of the abuse have since been suspended.
Del Harvey, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety, told the Washington Post that they would not allow abusive behaviour such as this to happen ever again:
We have suspended a number of accounts related to this issue for violating our rules and we are in the process of evaluating how we can further improve our policies to better handle tragic situations like this one. This includes expanding our policies regarding self-harm and private information, and improving support for family members of deceased users.
Twitter has previously been criticised for their attitude towards harassment on the site – last year, a campaign to introduce a Report Tweet button succeeded after feminist activist Caroline Criado-Perez spoke out about receiving rape threats on Twitter.
Critics have pointed out that the changes would not stop Twitter trolls from simply creating new accounts.
