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SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Twitter announced Tuesday it would remove images of deceased people upon request from their families, after images and videos of U.S. journalist James Foley's execution appeared on social media sites. The policy revamp comes a week after Robin Williams' daughter, Zelda Williams, announced she was leaving social media after Internet trolls posted gruesome photoshopped pictures of her father.
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"Mining our accounts for photos of dad, or judging me on the number of them is cruel and unnecessary," was the last thing William's tweeted before leaving the site.
"In order to respect the wishes of loved ones, Twitter will remove imagery of deceased individuals in certain circumstances," said Twitter spokesman Nu Wexler.
"When reviewing such media removal requests, Twitter considers public interest factors such as the newsworthiness of the content and may not be able to honor every request," Wexler added.
The social media site was flooded Tuesday evening with screenshots of a graphic video showing the execution of Foley and tweets with links to the video. Twitter said it would remove such content only on the request of immediate family members or authorized individuals. But Twitter still refuses to provide access to any account, even to relatives of the person who died.
A White House official told the Washington Post that State Department and Defense officials were wiring with social media sites to inform them of the Foley video. Twitter blocked a pair of accounts that sent images of the execution and said it would continue to review its user-protection policies.
