8 ms·

FBI Arrests Man For Allegedly Sending Journalist Seizure-Causing GIF

61 points by mudil 10y ago

M_Grey 10y ago
You know, if the man had fallen and died, this would be an open-and-shut case of 2nd degree murder via "depraved indifference".
zipwitch 10y ago
Obligatory _Snow Crash_ reference along with the increasingly redundant observation that we really are living in a cyberpunk dystopia.
sauronlord 10y ago
What's next? Sending pictures of hamburgers, porn, candy and alcohol will be illegal because it can cause people to become obese, suffer stroke, and disease, and an erection. In other news, the proprietors of hundreds of optical illusion sites have had their homes raided and being kept in prison cells for inciting physical distress on the public. Soon there will be takedown requests to remove search results for sites that discuss optical illusions or link to sites that link to sites that -may- cause some physical distress
- GabrielF00 10y ago
  This was done on purpose - the individual specifically said he was doing it to cause a seizure. It's not comparable to hypotheticals you described.
  - sauronlord 10y ago
    Oh, so Big Food, Pharma, Alcohol are not intentionally making you crave the shitty addictive foods that we know cause those symptoms?
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      That has nothing, and I mean nothing to do with the article, or any discussion regarding it. Why do you keep bringing up that non sequitur?
- M_Grey 10y ago
  No, it's like you being deathly allergic to shellfish, and me coating your glass with shrimp extract. It's a clear attempt to harm without any concern for potentially injurious or fatal outcomes.
  - sauronlord 10y ago
    That's poisoning someone.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      Showing an image designed to induce a seizure in someone with a neurological disorder is not unlike poisoning. It's so refreshing to finally be on the same page.
- mackal 10y ago
  Let's remove the internet from the equation. So you have a grudge with someone, you know they have epilepsy, so you assault them to trigger one. Is this a crime? Most likely, I know if I had epilepsy I would hope so (and judging from this article I think it is) So why is it ridiculous for assaulting someone on Twitter specifically to trigger a seizure some how ridiculous that it's a crime?
  - pyre 10y ago
    Because then we can't treat the Internet like the wild west and do a bunch of stuff that the law would have prevented us from doing before... /s
- adventured 10y ago
  > More than 40 ppl sent strobes once they found out they could trigger seizures. I'd like to see you explain how that isn't an intentional attempt to physically harm the journalist in question. There are dozens of things that fall under the same legal category, such as pranks (often harmless unless they go wrong) that end up physically harming someone, that will properly get you in serious trouble.
  - coding123 10y ago
    That's actually one of the sad things about the internet, it can instantly bring out the worst in people. I suspect if people know seizures can result in death fewer would have done it, but there would still have been people doing it. I wouldn't mind if they arrested all 40, gave them a day in jail so they could think about their actions, and also let the world know there are consequences for it.
    - sauronlord 10y ago
      Yes, because guilty until proven innocent is the best way to teach them a lesson! It's a shame you are not a lawyer or a judge.
      - glhaynes 10y ago
        Arrests occur previous to judges being involved and determinations of guilt. Your sarcastic and aggressive tone in this thread isn't helping you get your point across.
        dragonwriter 10y ago
        > Arrests occur previous to judges being involved and determinations of guilt. Well, quite often after judges are involved, but before determinations of guilt. Arrest warrants are, after all, a thing.
        glhaynes 10y ago
- Vosporos 10y ago
  Nah, what's next is that you will see a friend of yours die because of their allergies to a product that wasn't indicated on the package. Will you spit on the grave, or will you realize that you aren't alone in this world and your apparent absence of triggers doesn't prevent you from being a shithead? Cheers, and happy St. Patrick.
  - sauronlord 10y ago
    Nice ad-hominem. This is a philosophical debate and we are on a very interesting line that is worthy of passionate discussion. It is not as clear cut as many people say. We aggressively advertise harmful substances to people, KNOWING full well that MILLIONS of people will be imprinted at a young age and result in disastrous consequences for their health (Seizures! And more). Giving kids sugar at a young age and making them addicted to sugary cereals with "prizes" in the box should result in a much greater pumishment than what these chumps did. I know they are on a different scale. But your reaction is a pre-reflective one and likely due to the novelty of this "assault". We will see if these writings are vindicated or not based on a guilty/not-guilty. Then we can read the Judge's PDF and see what philosophical consideratioms were at play.
    - pyre 10y ago
      > We aggressively advertise harmful substances to people, KNOWING full well that MILLIONS of people will be imprinted at a young age and result in disastrous consequences for their health (Seizures! And more). You are stating here that "we" are aggressively advertising harmful substances to people that will cause them to have seizures?
    - Vosporos 10y ago
      >Nice ad-hominem. Poor snowflake. You're so special people can't call you out when you're throwing up shit on a website.
      - khazhou 10y ago
        Your reply right there was pure ad hominem :-)
- chc 10y ago
  In other news, false equivalences lead to bad conclusions. The same action can be beneficent in some contexts, malicious in others, and even neutral in still others — think a surgeon cutting someone vs. an assassin cutting someone vs. somebody handing you a document that gives you a papercut. Treating all these cases as though they're equivalent would be ridiculous and not at all useful.
coding123 10y ago
I think on the face of it these types of things sound ridiculous. For example everyone knows that murder is murder. And everyone knows that an accident is an accident. But what might seem like an accident, but was actually perpetrated on purpose because of knowledge of a condition, that's murder. Going back to reality: Someone severely allergic to peanuts is killed with peanuts in their food by a mistake: accident. Someone severely allergic to peanuts is killed with peanuts in their food because someone added them on purpose with knowledge of the condition? Murder. Luckily, seizures don't always result in death. Now to confound the issue here? The internet is already filled with blinking gifs, so this case is much more complicated.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Not really. Message board nerds may not care much about intent, but intent is most of what the law cares about. If it's really the GIF this person is being charged for, then the prosecution will simply present evidence to prove to a jury that the accused deliberately attempted to trigger a Eichenwald's seizure. The mechanics of how they tried to do that will be of secondary importance, except to the extent that the law will likely care that whatever mechanism was used did in fact stand a good chance of causing a seizure.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Message board nerds may not care much about intent, but intent is most of what the law cares about. More accurately, mental state (of which intent is but one aspect) is a substantial part of the definition of most crimes.
  - mindslight 10y ago
    You've mischaracterized it as a strawman of "message board nerds", but it's actually a respectable philosophical distinction between purely executable semantics and ambient authority. Executable semantics are more scalable, being a core innovation that allowed the Internet to flourish - eg a router doesn't care about the intent of a packet, but only its destination address. (ISPs are doing their best to undermine the e2e principle, attempting to infer intent to extract more value than can be gotten from commodity service, but I digress). If we want to follow the implications of executable semantics, then an epileptic should have software which prevents harmful signals from being shown on their screen. This seems onerous, except for the ultimate alternative being a single world jurisdiction to enable post-facto prosecution of cross-border "intent", and destruction of Internet anonymity to effect this. A signal filter also seems to be a more practical device than say a content filter to block scams for a cognitively-impaired older person, which is the accepted state of affairs even for intranational snail mail (eg Publishers' Clearinghouse). (note: I've said nothing condoning the actual act of attempting to give a person a seizure, but only how we should analyze the systems that have given rise to this capability. The simplistic reaction of focusing blame on the (essentially stochastic) perpetrator is helping to push us down the path of unsustainable centralization)
donatj 10y ago
On the one hand, those are awful horrible people who sent him the gifs, on the other hand I feel like sending someone a gif is protected free speech? I'm very torn. Also I don't know what app he is using but they don't autoplay for me… So it seems… avoidable.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Well... no. If you could say a magic word that induced a seizure, you would be prohibited from saying that too.
  - donatj 10y ago
    I think there are a number of words that "trigger" certain people, and it's well within my legal rights to say them.
    - vonkow 10y ago
      "triggering" someone is not the same thing as triggering a seizure.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      I think you probably understood what I actually meant, and wrote, so I won't be entertaining ^That.
      - donatj 10y ago
        I understood completely well, I simply legitimately don't think they're that different of things. I think you're underplaying triggering. They are both mental triggers. You literally "trigger" a seizure. I know a person who any mention of rape brings her to attempt self harm. It's genuinely not that different.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        Except for the part where it's completely different, and you decided to play the, "doesn't understand what you mean" game first. I like to think that if you had a good point, you'd be making it, and that it wouldn't involve a really desperate attempt to equivocate between "trigger words" and photosensitive epilepsy.
darkstar999 10y ago
Slippery slope? What if I post a seizure gif to twitter, not addressed to anyone in particular? Can I be charged if some random person sees it?
- tekklloneer 10y ago
  Not at all. Unless you tag it with a person you know vulnerable to seizures, and then on top of that, brag about it.
- diabeetusman 10y ago
  You can swing your arms around as much as you like, but if you swing them into someone's face, that's illegal. As someone posted above, you can make food with peanuts as much as you'd like, but if you sneak peanuts into someone's meal who you know is allergic to peanuts, that's illegal. Tweeting gifs? Fine. Tweeting gifs at someone with the intent to cause harm? Illegal
jawns 10y ago
[Deleted]
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  What if I send you baked goods with peanuts in them without telling you, knowing it might kill you?
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  The victim not taking the appropriate steps to avoid something harmful to them is never, ever a defense in assault cases. It's not as if we punish muggers less severely if they mugged someone in a bad neighborhood where the victim shouldn't have been walking. Even if the person here hadn't known that Eichenwald had epilepsy, they could still be charged, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull. So the fact that they did know and intentionally caused an attack is certainly punishable.
- burkaman 10y ago
  It doesn't matter what steps you take. If you leave all your doors unlocked and your windows open and tell the world you have $1 million in cash inside, it's still a crime to rob you.
- molecule 10y ago
  The key here is intent to cause harm.
- partkyle 10y ago
  > Like, if I'm severely allergic to peanuts, then I take reasonable steps to avoid them, such as not patronizing a restaurant that uses peanuts in its food. What if someone made you a sandwich and didn't tell you there were peanuts in it with the intent of causing a reaction? Eating the sandwich could have been avoided, but you wouldn't know that until you took a bite.
- berberous 10y ago
  This should clearly be a criminal offense. I do not think someone should be held responsible if they post seizure inducing GIFs with no ill intent, but this guy @ replied the journalist so it showed up on his Twitter feed, with a message accompanying the gif saying that he deserved a seizure.
khazhou 10y ago
Anyone have a link to good GIFs? I couldn't find any. I'm very curious to see what these look like. [edit] Found this based on suggestion below. Obviously, don't click if you're seizure-prone: http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb217/powercrazy13/you-deserve-a-seizure.gif http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb217/powercrazy13/you-de... I guess I'm not epileptic. It's pretty uncomfortable to look at for a long stretch though. Anyone know what happens if a non-epileptic stares at an image like this, say, for an hour?
- usernametbd 10y ago
  Weird how mind works. I clicked the link ONLY to see if the gifs are there. Didn't read a single line in the article, closed and came to comments to see if it's here.
  - elastic_church 10y ago
    its more efficient, many times
- generalledger 10y ago
  In as much as the FBI just arrested a dude for this... I wont post a link. But do a search for "you deserve a seizure" and you'll see.
- gus_massa 10y ago
  > I guess I'm not epileptic. Only a small part of the epileptic people is sensible to the flashing light. Some are affected by strong strip patterns instead. Most are totally not affected by this, and their seizures can be triggered by other means. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy > Photosensitive epilepsy (PSE) is a form of epilepsy in which seizures are triggered by visual stimuli that form patterns in time or space, such as flashing lights, bold, regular patterns, or regular moving patterns. From http://www.epilepsy.com/learn/triggers-seizures/photosensitivity-and-seizures http://www.epilepsy.com/learn/triggers-seizures/photosensiti... > For about 3 percent of people with epilepsy, exposure to flashing lights at certain intensities or to certain visual patterns can trigger seizures. This condition is known as photosensitive epilepsy.
Overtonwindow 10y ago
Maybe I'm missing it but what, precisely, is this guy charged with?
- maxvu 10y ago
  There's a PDF of an incident report linked: assault.
  - Overtonwindow 10y ago
    Assault ....via the Internet‽ That's a new one. I can't wait to see this played out in court.
wnevets 10y ago
If random gifs can trigger your seizures then maybe you need to browse the internet with gifs disabled.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Right. If I can break into your house, I should get your stuff. You should have had better locks and thicker doors. /s
  - wnevets 10y ago
    How are those two even remotely similar?
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      Both depend on placing arbitrary limits on the victim of a crime, to excuse the perpetrator's behavior. It's not a crime to fail to take adequate precautions; it's a crime to try to rob someone, or harm them.
      - wnevets 10y ago
        >Both depend on placing arbitrary limits on the victim of a crime, to excuse the perpetrator's behavior They absolutely do not. If a person is sensitive/allergy to something why shouldn't it be that person's responsibility to avoid coming into contact with it? Should all gifs that MAY cause seizures be outlawed on the internet now? Why should it be the rest of the internet's responsibility not to have gifs that may cause seizures? What if I recommend an anime that may cause seizures, should I be arrested for recommending something?
        belltaco 10y ago
        So if you get hit by a bullet it's your fault that you're not wearing bulletproof clothes? Or is it the fault of the person who deliberately tried to cause harm to you?
        10y ago
exabrial 10y ago
Yikes. While I feel bad for the journalist, this has some serious implications
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  It really doesn't. This is assault and battery, and will be punished like any other assault and battery case.
goda90 10y ago
How technically difficult would it be to make a browser extension that detects and pauses videos and gifs that might cause a seizure? Are the conditions that cause seizures pretty well known so that something specific can be detected?
- 15155 10y ago
  Videos - disable autoplay. GIFs - adblock them? as far as detection goes - you could detect vast color shifts at high frequencies.
- bassman9000 10y ago
  Twitter doesn't play them if you don't want to. He stated that happened to him before. And still didn't disable autoplay. No case.
hl5 10y ago
Eichenwald has made many enemies and intentionally became part of his own reporting. He is his own victim. That a reporter like that would challenge the first amendment with a naive emotionally charged approach should give anyone pause. http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39957/ http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39957/
- catshirt 10y ago
  > "challenge the first amendment" sorry, what? i don't think assault is protected by the first amendment. at the risk of sounding naive i have to ask why Manson wasn't protected under the first amendment?
  - hl5 10y ago
    Perhaps Muslims are owed justice for the imagery assaulting their prophet? Is assault possible with only words and images? If it entices someone to commit acts of violence, yes. If it is the words themselves that cause injury, the reader has the option to not engage in risky behavior.
    - catshirt 10y ago
      my point is simply that many types of expression and speech are not protected by the first amendment. period. there is nothing contradictory or ironic of a journalist challenging the first amendment in court. break it down this way: some guy literally tried to give another guy a seizure. are the means by which he tried to induce the seizure even relevant? would anyone really suggest taking action with this intent should not be punishable? a lot of people want to say "oh but free speech...?"-- as if to imply you're free to kill someone as long as you only use words to do it.
      - hl5 10y ago
        It's not reasonable to introduce additional first amendment restrictions or award damages in response to targeted prank tweets by internet trolls. How do we know Eichenwald actually had a seizure? Why wouldn't he take precautions if he knew using a computer could cause a seizure? He appears to have motive to lie, an opportunity to get away with it, and a proven desire to be the "hero" in his own reporting. He is his own victim.
Nugem_ 10y ago
Imagine if the man viewed this while driving, crashed and died or killed others.
- mnm1 10y ago
  Then I'd have no sympathy for him and if he survived he should be put in jail for manslaughter, possibly even murder. The guy knows these devices do this to him yet continues to use them. If he's using these devices behind the wheel (or IMO at all) he's being irresponsible. He needs to take responsibility for his actions and stop blaming others. In other words, he's responsible for his own actions (using devices that can cause seizures) and their consequences (getting a seizure) like everyone else at all times.

61 points by mudil 10y ago

You know, if the man had fallen and died, this would be an open-and-shut case of 2nd degree murder via "depraved indifference".

zipwitch 10y ago

Obligatory _Snow Crash_ reference along with the increasingly redundant observation that we really are living in a cyberpunk dystopia.

sauronlord 10y ago

What's next? Sending pictures of hamburgers, porn, candy and alcohol will be illegal because it can cause people to become obese, suffer stroke, and disease, and an erection. In other news, the proprietors of hundreds of optical illusion sites have had their homes raided and being kept in prison cells for inciting physical distress on the public. Soon there will be takedown requests to remove search results for sites that discuss optical illusions or link to sites that link to sites that -may- cause some physical distress

GabrielF00 10y ago
This was done on purpose - the individual specifically said he was doing it to cause a seizure. It's not comparable to hypotheticals you described.
- sauronlord 10y ago
  Oh, so Big Food, Pharma, Alcohol are not intentionally making you crave the shitty addictive foods that we know cause those symptoms?
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    That has nothing, and I mean nothing to do with the article, or any discussion regarding it. Why do you keep bringing up that non sequitur?
M_Grey 10y ago
No, it's like you being deathly allergic to shellfish, and me coating your glass with shrimp extract. It's a clear attempt to harm without any concern for potentially injurious or fatal outcomes.
- sauronlord 10y ago
  That's poisoning someone.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Showing an image designed to induce a seizure in someone with a neurological disorder is not unlike poisoning. It's so refreshing to finally be on the same page.
mackal 10y ago
Let's remove the internet from the equation. So you have a grudge with someone, you know they have epilepsy, so you assault them to trigger one. Is this a crime? Most likely, I know if I had epilepsy I would hope so (and judging from this article I think it is) So why is it ridiculous for assaulting someone on Twitter specifically to trigger a seizure some how ridiculous that it's a crime?
- pyre 10y ago
  Because then we can't treat the Internet like the wild west and do a bunch of stuff that the law would have prevented us from doing before... /s
adventured 10y ago
> More than 40 ppl sent strobes once they found out they could trigger seizures. I'd like to see you explain how that isn't an intentional attempt to physically harm the journalist in question. There are dozens of things that fall under the same legal category, such as pranks (often harmless unless they go wrong) that end up physically harming someone, that will properly get you in serious trouble.
- coding123 10y ago
  That's actually one of the sad things about the internet, it can instantly bring out the worst in people. I suspect if people know seizures can result in death fewer would have done it, but there would still have been people doing it. I wouldn't mind if they arrested all 40, gave them a day in jail so they could think about their actions, and also let the world know there are consequences for it.
  - sauronlord 10y ago
    Yes, because guilty until proven innocent is the best way to teach them a lesson! It's a shame you are not a lawyer or a judge.
    - glhaynes 10y ago
      Arrests occur previous to judges being involved and determinations of guilt. Your sarcastic and aggressive tone in this thread isn't helping you get your point across.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > Arrests occur previous to judges being involved and determinations of guilt. Well, quite often after judges are involved, but before determinations of guilt. Arrest warrants are, after all, a thing.
        glhaynes 10y ago
Vosporos 10y ago
Nah, what's next is that you will see a friend of yours die because of their allergies to a product that wasn't indicated on the package. Will you spit on the grave, or will you realize that you aren't alone in this world and your apparent absence of triggers doesn't prevent you from being a shithead? Cheers, and happy St. Patrick.
- sauronlord 10y ago
  Nice ad-hominem. This is a philosophical debate and we are on a very interesting line that is worthy of passionate discussion. It is not as clear cut as many people say. We aggressively advertise harmful substances to people, KNOWING full well that MILLIONS of people will be imprinted at a young age and result in disastrous consequences for their health (Seizures! And more). Giving kids sugar at a young age and making them addicted to sugary cereals with "prizes" in the box should result in a much greater pumishment than what these chumps did. I know they are on a different scale. But your reaction is a pre-reflective one and likely due to the novelty of this "assault". We will see if these writings are vindicated or not based on a guilty/not-guilty. Then we can read the Judge's PDF and see what philosophical consideratioms were at play.
  - pyre 10y ago
    > We aggressively advertise harmful substances to people, KNOWING full well that MILLIONS of people will be imprinted at a young age and result in disastrous consequences for their health (Seizures! And more). You are stating here that "we" are aggressively advertising harmful substances to people that will cause them to have seizures?
  - Vosporos 10y ago
    >Nice ad-hominem. Poor snowflake. You're so special people can't call you out when you're throwing up shit on a website.
    - khazhou 10y ago
      Your reply right there was pure ad hominem :-)
chc 10y ago
In other news, false equivalences lead to bad conclusions. The same action can be beneficent in some contexts, malicious in others, and even neutral in still others — think a surgeon cutting someone vs. an assassin cutting someone vs. somebody handing you a document that gives you a papercut. Treating all these cases as though they're equivalent would be ridiculous and not at all useful.

coding123 10y ago

I think on the face of it these types of things sound ridiculous. For example everyone knows that murder is murder. And everyone knows that an accident is an accident. But what might seem like an accident, but was actually perpetrated on purpose because of knowledge of a condition, that's murder. Going back to reality: Someone severely allergic to peanuts is killed with peanuts in their food by a mistake: accident. Someone severely allergic to peanuts is killed with peanuts in their food because someone added them on purpose with knowledge of the condition? Murder. Luckily, seizures don't always result in death. Now to confound the issue here? The internet is already filled with blinking gifs, so this case is much more complicated.

tptacek 10y ago
Not really. Message board nerds may not care much about intent, but intent is most of what the law cares about. If it's really the GIF this person is being charged for, then the prosecution will simply present evidence to prove to a jury that the accused deliberately attempted to trigger a Eichenwald's seizure. The mechanics of how they tried to do that will be of secondary importance, except to the extent that the law will likely care that whatever mechanism was used did in fact stand a good chance of causing a seizure.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Message board nerds may not care much about intent, but intent is most of what the law cares about. More accurately, mental state (of which intent is but one aspect) is a substantial part of the definition of most crimes.
- mindslight 10y ago
  You've mischaracterized it as a strawman of "message board nerds", but it's actually a respectable philosophical distinction between purely executable semantics and ambient authority. Executable semantics are more scalable, being a core innovation that allowed the Internet to flourish - eg a router doesn't care about the intent of a packet, but only its destination address. (ISPs are doing their best to undermine the e2e principle, attempting to infer intent to extract more value than can be gotten from commodity service, but I digress). If we want to follow the implications of executable semantics, then an epileptic should have software which prevents harmful signals from being shown on their screen. This seems onerous, except for the ultimate alternative being a single world jurisdiction to enable post-facto prosecution of cross-border "intent", and destruction of Internet anonymity to effect this. A signal filter also seems to be a more practical device than say a content filter to block scams for a cognitively-impaired older person, which is the accepted state of affairs even for intranational snail mail (eg Publishers' Clearinghouse). (note: I've said nothing condoning the actual act of attempting to give a person a seizure, but only how we should analyze the systems that have given rise to this capability. The simplistic reaction of focusing blame on the (essentially stochastic) perpetrator is helping to push us down the path of unsustainable centralization)

donatj 10y ago

On the one hand, those are awful horrible people who sent him the gifs, on the other hand I feel like sending someone a gif is protected free speech? I'm very torn. Also I don't know what app he is using but they don't autoplay for me… So it seems… avoidable.

M_Grey 10y ago
Well... no. If you could say a magic word that induced a seizure, you would be prohibited from saying that too.
- donatj 10y ago
  I think there are a number of words that "trigger" certain people, and it's well within my legal rights to say them.
  - vonkow 10y ago
    "triggering" someone is not the same thing as triggering a seizure.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    I think you probably understood what I actually meant, and wrote, so I won't be entertaining ^That.
    - donatj 10y ago
      I understood completely well, I simply legitimately don't think they're that different of things. I think you're underplaying triggering. They are both mental triggers. You literally "trigger" a seizure. I know a person who any mention of rape brings her to attempt self harm. It's genuinely not that different.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        Except for the part where it's completely different, and you decided to play the, "doesn't understand what you mean" game first. I like to think that if you had a good point, you'd be making it, and that it wouldn't involve a really desperate attempt to equivocate between "trigger words" and photosensitive epilepsy.

darkstar999 10y ago

Slippery slope? What if I post a seizure gif to twitter, not addressed to anyone in particular? Can I be charged if some random person sees it?

tekklloneer 10y ago
Not at all. Unless you tag it with a person you know vulnerable to seizures, and then on top of that, brag about it.
diabeetusman 10y ago
You can swing your arms around as much as you like, but if you swing them into someone's face, that's illegal. As someone posted above, you can make food with peanuts as much as you'd like, but if you sneak peanuts into someone's meal who you know is allergic to peanuts, that's illegal. Tweeting gifs? Fine. Tweeting gifs at someone with the intent to cause harm? Illegal

jawns 10y ago

[Deleted]

toomuchtodo 10y ago
What if I send you baked goods with peanuts in them without telling you, knowing it might kill you?
Analemma_ 10y ago
The victim not taking the appropriate steps to avoid something harmful to them is never, ever a defense in assault cases. It's not as if we punish muggers less severely if they mugged someone in a bad neighborhood where the victim shouldn't have been walking. Even if the person here hadn't known that Eichenwald had epilepsy, they could still be charged, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull. So the fact that they did know and intentionally caused an attack is certainly punishable.
burkaman 10y ago
It doesn't matter what steps you take. If you leave all your doors unlocked and your windows open and tell the world you have $1 million in cash inside, it's still a crime to rob you.
molecule 10y ago
The key here is intent to cause harm.
partkyle 10y ago
> Like, if I'm severely allergic to peanuts, then I take reasonable steps to avoid them, such as not patronizing a restaurant that uses peanuts in its food. What if someone made you a sandwich and didn't tell you there were peanuts in it with the intent of causing a reaction? Eating the sandwich could have been avoided, but you wouldn't know that until you took a bite.
berberous 10y ago
This should clearly be a criminal offense. I do not think someone should be held responsible if they post seizure inducing GIFs with no ill intent, but this guy @ replied the journalist so it showed up on his Twitter feed, with a message accompanying the gif saying that he deserved a seizure.

khazhou 10y ago

Anyone have a link to good GIFs? I couldn't find any. I'm very curious to see what these look like. [edit] Found this based on suggestion below. Obviously, don't click if you're seizure-prone: http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb217/powercrazy13/you-deserve-a-seizure.gif http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb217/powercrazy13/you-de... I guess I'm not epileptic. It's pretty uncomfortable to look at for a long stretch though. Anyone know what happens if a non-epileptic stares at an image like this, say, for an hour?

usernametbd 10y ago
Weird how mind works. I clicked the link ONLY to see if the gifs are there. Didn't read a single line in the article, closed and came to comments to see if it's here.
- elastic_church 10y ago
  its more efficient, many times
generalledger 10y ago
In as much as the FBI just arrested a dude for this... I wont post a link. But do a search for "you deserve a seizure" and you'll see.
gus_massa 10y ago
> I guess I'm not epileptic. Only a small part of the epileptic people is sensible to the flashing light. Some are affected by strong strip patterns instead. Most are totally not affected by this, and their seizures can be triggered by other means. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy > Photosensitive epilepsy (PSE) is a form of epilepsy in which seizures are triggered by visual stimuli that form patterns in time or space, such as flashing lights, bold, regular patterns, or regular moving patterns. From http://www.epilepsy.com/learn/triggers-seizures/photosensitivity-and-seizures http://www.epilepsy.com/learn/triggers-seizures/photosensiti... > For about 3 percent of people with epilepsy, exposure to flashing lights at certain intensities or to certain visual patterns can trigger seizures. This condition is known as photosensitive epilepsy.

Overtonwindow 10y ago

Maybe I'm missing it but what, precisely, is this guy charged with?

maxvu 10y ago
There's a PDF of an incident report linked: assault.
- Overtonwindow 10y ago
  Assault ....via the Internet‽ That's a new one. I can't wait to see this played out in court.

wnevets 10y ago

If random gifs can trigger your seizures then maybe you need to browse the internet with gifs disabled.

M_Grey 10y ago
Right. If I can break into your house, I should get your stuff. You should have had better locks and thicker doors. /s
- wnevets 10y ago
  How are those two even remotely similar?
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Both depend on placing arbitrary limits on the victim of a crime, to excuse the perpetrator's behavior. It's not a crime to fail to take adequate precautions; it's a crime to try to rob someone, or harm them.
    - wnevets 10y ago
      >Both depend on placing arbitrary limits on the victim of a crime, to excuse the perpetrator's behavior They absolutely do not. If a person is sensitive/allergy to something why shouldn't it be that person's responsibility to avoid coming into contact with it? Should all gifs that MAY cause seizures be outlawed on the internet now? Why should it be the rest of the internet's responsibility not to have gifs that may cause seizures? What if I recommend an anime that may cause seizures, should I be arrested for recommending something?
      - belltaco 10y ago
        So if you get hit by a bullet it's your fault that you're not wearing bulletproof clothes? Or is it the fault of the person who deliberately tried to cause harm to you?
      - 10y ago

exabrial 10y ago

Yikes. While I feel bad for the journalist, this has some serious implications

Analemma_ 10y ago
It really doesn't. This is assault and battery, and will be punished like any other assault and battery case.

goda90 10y ago

How technically difficult would it be to make a browser extension that detects and pauses videos and gifs that might cause a seizure? Are the conditions that cause seizures pretty well known so that something specific can be detected?

15155 10y ago
Videos - disable autoplay. GIFs - adblock them? as far as detection goes - you could detect vast color shifts at high frequencies.
bassman9000 10y ago
Twitter doesn't play them if you don't want to. He stated that happened to him before. And still didn't disable autoplay. No case.

hl5 10y ago

Eichenwald has made many enemies and intentionally became part of his own reporting. He is his own victim. That a reporter like that would challenge the first amendment with a naive emotionally charged approach should give anyone pause. http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39957/ http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39957/

catshirt 10y ago
> "challenge the first amendment" sorry, what? i don't think assault is protected by the first amendment. at the risk of sounding naive i have to ask why Manson wasn't protected under the first amendment?
- hl5 10y ago
  Perhaps Muslims are owed justice for the imagery assaulting their prophet? Is assault possible with only words and images? If it entices someone to commit acts of violence, yes. If it is the words themselves that cause injury, the reader has the option to not engage in risky behavior.
  - catshirt 10y ago
    my point is simply that many types of expression and speech are not protected by the first amendment. period. there is nothing contradictory or ironic of a journalist challenging the first amendment in court. break it down this way: some guy literally tried to give another guy a seizure. are the means by which he tried to induce the seizure even relevant? would anyone really suggest taking action with this intent should not be punishable? a lot of people want to say "oh but free speech...?"-- as if to imply you're free to kill someone as long as you only use words to do it.
    - hl5 10y ago
      It's not reasonable to introduce additional first amendment restrictions or award damages in response to targeted prank tweets by internet trolls. How do we know Eichenwald actually had a seizure? Why wouldn't he take precautions if he knew using a computer could cause a seizure? He appears to have motive to lie, an opportunity to get away with it, and a proven desire to be the "hero" in his own reporting. He is his own victim.

Nugem_ 10y ago

Imagine if the man viewed this while driving, crashed and died or killed others.

mnm1 10y ago
Then I'd have no sympathy for him and if he survived he should be put in jail for manslaughter, possibly even murder. The guy knows these devices do this to him yet continues to use them. If he's using these devices behind the wheel (or IMO at all) he's being irresponsible. He needs to take responsibility for his actions and stop blaming others. In other words, he's responsible for his own actions (using devices that can cause seizures) and their consequences (getting a seizure) like everyone else at all times.