Twitter said Tuesday it would take down pictures and videos of deceased users at requests of family members or authorized people.
“In order to respect the wishes of loved ones, Twitter will remove imagery of deceased individuals in certain circumstances,” the microblog wrote. Twitter said it would consider the removal requests that are taken “from when critical injury occurs to the moments before or after death.”
According to CNET, the new policy was added a week after Zelda Williams, Robin Williams’s daughter, announced she was closing her Twitter account after horror edited photos of her father were sent to her.
“Mining our accounts for photos of dad, or judging me on the number of them is cruel and unnecessary,” Zelda wrote on her Twitter before abandoning it.
Twitter blocked some accounts that sent the photoshopped pictures and said it would revise its user-protection policies.
“We will not tolerate abuse of this nature on Twitter,” Del Harvey, the microblog’s vice president of trust and safety, said in a statement. “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.”
While Twitter would start considering removal request, it would also consider “public interest factors such as the newsworthiness of the content” while reviewing them.
Photo Credit: Associated Press
