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Twitter Will Hand Over Data On the User Who Sent a Seizure-Inducing Tweet To a Journalist (theverge.com)
Last week, an unidentified Twitter user tweeted a seizure-inducing animation at Newsweek and Vanity Fair writer Kurt Eichenwald, who has epilepsy. Now, Eichenwald has taken the first step toward identifying the user. In response to a civil suit filed by Eichenwald this week in Dallas district court, Twitter has agreed to hand over all relevant subscriber data for the user in question. The attack came in apparent retaliation for Eichenwald's aggressive coverage of President-elect Trump. From a report on the Verge: While Eichenwald has yet to file criminal charges, the civil suit was sufficient for an ex parte order from the district judge. Twitter subsequently agreed to expedited relief, declining to challenge the order or demand further evidence from Eichenwald. The next step is likely to be a lawsuit against wireless carriers or service providers implicated by Twitter's records, who will have records linking IP addresses and other metadata to the attacker's legal name.
If the sender includes a note that says: Eat this is safe, removes all notices of containing nuts from the packaging.
Then includes a timed note that after he eats it says: I hope you die from nut allergy
Shouldn't we be aghast? We want tech companies to resist the courts, not comply.
Depends on the circumstances. This sounds reasonable, it was a deliberate, targeted attempt to cause physical harm to someone.
The sender is liable for damages?
If the sender removes the peanut warning label and intends to do harm, yes.
Seriously, what a stupid question, think about it before you just start typing shit that comes into your head.
People not thinking about the stupid shit they're saying is why we're discussing this article in the first place. That's how we got into this mess.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Twitter's legal team may have reviewed the case and decided that the request had merit, or that resisting would be unlikely to succeed.
If Eichenwald was a Trump supporter then Twitter would have fought to the death to protect the sender.
Maybe. Did you know the person had a peanut allergy? Did you intentionally send them a candy bar with peanuts in it? Did you intend to cause them harm by sending the peanut laden bar? Did you send the bar in a a way that the person was likely to be effected by the peanuts in the course of normal life?
The devil is in the details. Your example can easily be a good-faith mistake, but the tweet doesn't seem to be a mistake.
If you commit a crime under partial anonymity (which is what a Twitter account is), and a warrant is issued by a judge to unmask you, then that is how the system is supposed to work. Anonymity is not, nor should it ever be an effective means of evading prosecution for criminal acts. Yes, there need to be limits such as not allowing warrantless access to data or back doors in encryption, but providing it is technically possible to unveil the perpetrator and the police have gone through the appropriate judicial channels (to assure judicial oversight), then what could your problem possibly be.
This is like arguing that if someone mails you a letter bomb, but he puts a fake return address on it, trying to determine the attacker's true identity somehow violates his privacy rights.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The information about the aggressor should go to the police, not the victim. I'm all for that. I have a problem with it going to the victim.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Ah, the alt-right, back to blaming victims.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If the local police knew a person had epilepsy and turned on their lights for no other reason than to try and induce a seizure in said person and stated that that was the reason and that they hoped it would cause a seizure, then yes I would expect that person to be filing a lawsuit of some sort.
Doesn't mean they would win such a lawsuit of course...
Since this appears to be a civil suit, then yes, suing the perpetrator means the victim get's the alleged perpetrator's identity. It's still a court ultimately ordering the identity of the individual be revealed. Why would a civil court not have the same power to compel Twitter as a criminal court?
Here's a tip for anyone thinking of pulling a stunt like this, don't do it. You will very likely end up in either in a criminal or civil court, or possibly both. If common decency won't restrain you, then how about self-preservation?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is typical of our 'everyone is a victim', 'everyone gets a participation trophy' society. Nobody takes personal responsibility anymore for anything. It's symptomatic of the collapse of the USA as a former world power.
No. This is an example of someone specifically targeting the human with prior knowledge of him having epilepsy.
Isn't this protected by the bizarro 4th amendment?
The 4th amendment protects against illegal search and seizure. Properly gathering evidence as part of an investigation of an alleged crime is in fact legal.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Exactly. One of the pillars of a criminal prosecution is intent. It's one thing to send out a seizure-inducing animation to someone, unaware that this was produce a seizure. It's another thing to target someone who you know is an epileptic with the clear intent to cause harm.
I'm not so sure the intent is that clear. I would think it highly unlikely that a sender believes it will induce seizures, because that takes exposure time, and the subject will simply look away. I think it more likely that the intent was to provoke the recipient.
Much like dumping a bucket of water on someone is likely not an attempt to drown them, even if you know they fear drowning and can't swim. It would be technically possible for someone to drown that way, but highly unlikely.
just looking at tweets and other press releases is known as propaganda; which most of America would like, I'm afraid.
The media, theoretically, is supposed to ask hard questions.
The media is supposed to ask questions and get answers from our politicians so that the next election we can vote accordingly.
For example, "Exactly what does make America great again mean?"
Or, "How can you cut taxes, increase infrastructure spending and expect economic growth to increase tax revenues when Reagan proved it a fairy tale?"
the media this past election cycle was so inept, the we ended up with Trump.
Do you think the moron wrote to the headline it's a flashing animation?
Yes, if you would bother to read anything. This isn't the first time that someone did this to the dude AND the body of the tweet literally said "you deserve a seizure". Don't open these links, turn autoplay off, and if you can't do that then don't use shit services that may harm you if your controversial public posts can piss other people off.
Now if you will excuse me for exercising actual thought here, but NORMAL PEOPLE would think: 1: people have tried to send me things that are bad before > 2: this literally says the person sending it wants me to be hurt > 3: not gonna open this one.
Instead we have some dumb-ass guy going: 1: people have tried to make me have seizures through this service before > 2: this says it hopes I have a seizure > 3: opens the damn thing and has a seizure > 4: I should sue because I'm a fucking idiot that wants everyone else to babysit me.
The media ran it's credibility into the ground supporting Hillary. That's a one time thing, they can't do it again. No credibility left to burn.
Hillary really was a disaster for the Democrats.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It caused him to seize!
I have some concerns with taking this at face value. From all I've read, you need a prolonged exposure - more than the few milliseconds it takes to recognize it for what it is and look away. Which is why music venues can still use strobe lights, as long as they limit the time.
For now, I'd say he allegedly seized. Whether he really did so or not might need some medical expertise to weigh in - he certainly had an incentive for making people believe he did, and it's hard to prove a negative.
You don't have to do any of that shit if your subject goes out of his way to tap the checkbox labeled "Auto-eat all sandwiches"
In no realm of reality is a .gif on the internet like a letter bomb.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
1) No, your analogy is ridiculous. It shows that, despite your desire to buff up the scholarly chops of your post with a link to a dictionary definition, you do not understand the legal concept of assault.
2) Not every goddamn thing is about "The Left" (or I suppose, by corollary, the heroic "Right"). By choosing to couch your entire worldview** in these terms, you do yourself a great disservice. When the only tool you have is a shoehorn, everything looks like a left or right shoe (to paraphrase Maslow).
But often times, as is the case here, you'll find yourself trying to jam a 1L Torts textbook into some weird partisan ideological clog, and it comes off as ham-fisted and inapt. What's next? Can we work "SJWs" in here somehow? Is it too much of a stretch to blame this one on Islam?
**If your worldview is somehow more nuanced, it hasn't come across in your prodigious post history.
Nothing posted to
I don't get why people try to defend things by saying "what about what so and so did?" Who gives a fuck? That's not a defense for this kind of crap. I don't care about politics in this situation because no matter what someone's political views he's still entitled to protection under the law. Just because someone else got fucked over is no defense. There's no way on earth to justify threatening the guys daughter. This is tantamount to the stupid bastards that try to justify jihad because someone offended muslims by making obscene pictures of allah. One thing has nothing to do with the other.
If you have epilepsy, you should really turn that off.
I use twitter in my browser and it doesn't autoplay anything. :) If Kurt wasn't such a man-child, he'd have done the same thing.... but his meltdown after his meltdown on Tucker Carlson's show means he is lashing out to people who saw his meltdown.
I have no fucking sympathy for assholes.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Yet another reason to kill video autoplay. Seriously the shittiest web trend at the moment.
If Trump's "grabbing pussy" without first obtaining a written permission
I like how you've smoothly changed requiring consent into needing written permission as an attempt to discredit it. Written permission is not...
actually you know what? If you have such deep trouble understanding the concept of intent, then I think perhaps you ought to not touch any women without written permission. It's better for everyone that way.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If you have epilepsy, you should really turn that off.
Yeah, I mean I'm swinging my fists at you. The onus is really on you to get out of the way and protect yourself.
In the real world with actual courts and judges and everything, if you attempt to assault someone, the excuse "they should have defended themselves so its their fault for not doing so" doesn't cut it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I know he's milking this for sympathy after his rant and implosion on Tucker Carlson's show.
I am in no way familiar with the wider context of this, but you should have pointed out this extreme bias at the start rather than at the end.
You "know" someone's internal motivations, therefore what you say about them is too biased to take seriously.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.