In the wake of her father's death on Monday, Zelda Williams found herself being targeted by trolls who were harassing her with Photoshopped images of her deceased dad.
Robin Williams was found dead of apparent suicide. While messages of love and support poured out across the world, Zelda's Twitter account was almost immediately spammed with anonymous accounts posting gruesome images, forcing the 25-year-old to post a statement to her account saying she would be leaving Twitter and other forms of social media to grieve privately.
I'm sorry. I should've risen above. Deleting this from my devices for a good long time, maybe forever. Time will tell. Goodbye.
— Zelda Williams (@zeldawilliams) August 13, 2014Now, Twitter says it is changing its policy about harassment. In a statement to The Wrap, a spokesperson said:
We will not tolerate abuse of this nature on Twitter. 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.
The change is welcome from many members of the Twitter community, who have found themselves the target of harassment and cyberbullying and found limited support from Twitter's moderators.