Twitter plans to re-evaluate its policies after Robin Williams' daughter quit social media due to harassment from other users following her father's suicide, Gawker reported on Thursday.
Cyber bullies began sending Zelda "cruel and unnecessary comments" a day after she posted a letter to her late father, Robin Williams, on Tumblr.
Twitter suspended the accounts of bullies who were sending the 25-year-old morbid photos, prompting the social media website to reexamine its policies. Zelda pleaded with her online followers to report the taunting bullies while the harassment was going on. She also asked her followers to petition the company to block two particular accounts that were levying most of the online abuse, according to The Washington Post.
Del Harvey, Twitter's vice president of trust and safety, said in a statement that Twitter will not tolerate abuse of this nature.
"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 does allow users to report abuse, document cyber bullying and sometimes get accounts taken down. The "report abuse" button was introduced last year after Caroline Criado-Perez, a British woman leading a campaign to put Jane Austen's image on the 10-pound note, was the victim of a string of abusive messages, according to The Washington Post. She said she received at least one rape threat per minute.
Users are able to block accounts that unfairly target them, but these same measures don't stop persistent attackers who will create new accounts to continue their tirade.
Imani Gandy, a senior legal analyst at the reproductive health publication RH Reality Check, said she faces daily abuse on Twitter from one man in particular who she has been unsuccessful in stopping. He has harassed her severely due to her race, gender and a medical condition, The Washington Post reported. Gandy also reported that Twitter reviewed a tweet from a user who threatened to rape a woman and decided it did not violate its community rules.
