As if losing her father wasn’t hard enough, Zelda Williams became the target of Twitter trolls earlier this week, ultimately resulting in her deleting her account entirely.
The 25-year-old was subjected to disturbing mocked-up images portraying her father’s body, which she said left her shaking. She posted on her Instagram account that she would be taking a break from that platform for a while, and would decide later if she was going to delete that account, too.
In light of the trolls, Twitter issued a statement saying it’s going to look at new ways to combat abuse and that it has already suspended several accounts known to have Tweeted at Zelda.
‘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,’ said Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety Del Harvey in a statement.
Zelda decided to keep her most cherished pictures of her father off all social media, saying, ‘My favourite photos of family are framed in my house, not posted on social media, and they’ll remain there. They would’ve wound up on the news or blogs then, and they certainly would now. [sic] That’s not what I want for our memories.
‘I shared him with a world where everyone was taking their photo with him, but I was lucky enough to spend time with him without cameras, too. That was more than enough, and I’m grateful for what little time I had.’
Here’s hoping Twitter’s new policy will help anyone who experiences a similar situation in future. Death and tragedy are awful enough without having to deal with pathetic trolls as well.
Meanwhile, Robin William'’s wife Susan Schneider has revealed in a statement that the actor was struggling with the early stages of Parkinson’s Disease.
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.