Slashdot Mirror
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.
Is it to late for me to file suit against the creators of all those geocities home pages I viewed back in the day?
So if someone with peanut allergies receives a candy bar with peanuts, they open it and take a bite. The sender is liable for damages?
When tweeting seizure-inducing animations becomes a crime, only criminals will tweet seizure-inducing animations.
Shouldn't we be aghast? We want tech companies to resist the courts, not comply.
That site can't die fast enough.....
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
...did the tweet actually cause him to have a seizure? Or did it just hurt his feelings?
I assume not but I would be curious if he actually looked at the tweet.
My heart says... go get that bastard who did this.
My head says... that's a violation of privacy expectations. No one expects their details to be released to other users of the system. In this case it was perhaps justified, but if they open the door there will be other requests for private information, some less just.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The failure of vitality. Like an rules to follow are having troublse sales and so on,
Why didn't Twitter just hand over the information?! it's an obvious violation of the rules and a REAL health hazard and Twitter has full rights to the info anyway.
Yay - whoo - go Twitter?!
People with epilepsy will sue local police for turning on the lights and siren?
dont forget to inform his insurance agency he is using the internet and intentionally risking health issues
Twitter is an integral part of our new President's international relations strategy. Also, it is his new media outlet.
From what I nderstand, President Trump tweet his State of the Union addresses.
If "seizure-inducing" speech is prosecutable now, we better all become "seizure-inducing haters", before the First Amendment is dead and buried.
They could not quite get at it with "hate speech" bans, they are attacking it with "seizures" now...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Isn't this protected by the bizarro 4th amendment?
I suppose, perhaps in the same sense that the stuff that comes out your butt is the same as "food," you could make the claim; but most people will give you Forest Whitaker eye when you try it.
but they best not be animated or you can talk to my lawyer.
I am epileptic. I saw the image. I didn't get a seizure. This guy is a lying scumbag.
It is perfectly common for people arguing online to develop a sincere (if fleeting) desire to physically harm an opponent. The deliberation and targeting are very easy to find. Usually such rage is impotent — or is it? If, as we are told by TFA, speech can cause a seizure, how about less obvious but still detrimental effects of spiting words and even polite expressions of disagreement?
If simply seeing the name "Trump" written in chalk on campus made some students "feel unsafe", should the perpetrators be prosecuted for the assault?
Folks in college today graduate a few years later — bringing their bogus ideas out with them. The Left's attack on speech is spilling from campuses... It may already be too late.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
So Twitter is now actively doxing people?
The only time this ever happens is if a leftist is ever affected.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
How can an animation trigger a seizure with modern LCD display monitors? The panels don't flicker. Its supposed to be basically impossible....
Nope the LCD's framerate is plenty fast enough.
That said, I'm surprised this guy survived using the web for this long. I always thought epileptics used modified browsers to avoid being killed by these gifs, particularly obnoxious advertisements, and intentionally obnoxious websites.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You forgot the most important part: he attempted to manipulate a democratically held election. He deserves to be shot as a traitor at the very least.
so does that mean we all deserve to be shot for all the vote rigging, government overthrowing, and despot dictator supporting the US has engaged in during the past century in the name of anticommunism? if the government is by the people, the buck stops with us. We have overthrown democratically elected governments before.
The display does not flicker, but what is displayed on it sure can.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This Kurt Eichenwald asshat should be using lynx. Then he cant be "attacked", also he needs to get a doctor to treat his neurosis.
>is sending an animation a criminal act?
It depends on the circumstances. If I offer you half an ounce of lead, it's not a criminal act. If I send it to you at 700MPH, the courts always seem to think that I meant you harm. It's just a bit of metal, so there should really be no restriction on how I offer it to you or how I obtained it - right?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
First: a guy with epilepsy sends still images to someone who doesn't have epilepsy, multiple times since September. Victim is baffled. "Why are they doing this?!"
Second: Epileptic guy threatens to use his sorcerous powers resurrect victim, should victim ever die. Victim is terrified, "OMG, you're going to do to me, what the villain of "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" did! And then -- plot twist -- the epileptic guy shows up on his doorstep as a shambling corpse, much like in "The Thing on the Doorstep."(BTW, these two HPL stories just happen have a lot of things in common. Coincidence?)
Third: Victim's daughter breaks into the epileptic guy's school, taking away messages intended for the epileptic guy. One of the messages has a virus, which the daughter downloads, chmod+x's and sudo executes. She is pwned.
The result: victim sues epileptic asshole, Slashdot supports.
Did the sender know that the recipient had a condition that would be triggered by the email?
That is the most amazing website ever! Its glory is undiminished by adblock, which is quite the achievement!
An intoxicated person cannot legally give consent, even if the person consented prior to intoxication and knowingly took the intoxicant. An inability to give consent while in the moment is legally an absence of consent, regardless of what happened before.
The victim might be guilty of criminal stupidity, but there is no mitigation of the rapist's guilt, in this case.
I could see those tables turning in some sort of entrapment case. "A" consumes a date-rape drug in secret, without anybody else knowing, and solicits B before the effects kick in (B having no idea any intoxication is involved). A then turns around and charges B with rape, and uses a positive date-rape-drug test as evidence.
Nobody would believe B's story, though.
A tweet felled a twat.
After all, it is causing actual real harm.
But also there should be some sort of seizure protection extension for the browsers.
Solving this particular issue would be very easy through a technological means.
All new users to twitter will be required to view this link first to determine whether or not their account will accept animated gifs.
NOTE: DON'T ACTUALLY CLICK THIS IF YOU'RE EPILEPTIC!
intentionally obnoxious websites
112 pounds a month for a fiat panda? Punch me in the balls, that's fucked.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The flicker does not have to be very fast - well withing the refresh rate of any modern monitor. (I have epilepsy) I spent a lot of time in the neurology clinic having strobes flashed in my face by doctors. That really sucked, but the clinic was free.
The only time this ever happens is if a leftist is ever affected. If it harms a non-leftist, they'll defend it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I'll be snickering aplenty when the boot of the law is on the neck of these alt-right douchebags. You *will* learn that harming/harassing someone IRL will get your pathetic ass in jail.
If i were someone on twitter who was sensitive enough to have a seizure from a simple gif, i would NOT have gifs/videos autoplay. By default you have to click on the image to get it to play.
The image in question literally had "you deserve a seizure" on it. That's the sort of thing you don't click play on.
Its similar to knowingly walking into a nightclub and then trying to sue them for giving you a seizure.
Ah, your use of SAT-words makes me feel so inferior, I'm going to cry now... Your chops are so intimidating.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Eichenwald is a piece of shit that has no business in the news industry.
If thousands of people do this now due to the Streisand effect, how many would be prosecuted?
Step 1: label anything you disagree with as 'intent to harm' and wrongthink
Step 2: reveal the IP of anyone posting wrongthink to the police or to the public
Step 3: scream like an autistic person as the entire "alt-right" switches to VPNs, proxies and anonymizing services and becomes totally untraceable even for actual crimes and threats (i.e. not just posting a seizure gif)
The lawsuit will go nowhere. Then again, a lawsuit may not be the end game here. It's possible he just wants the person unmasked.
The man claims it caused a seizure, but without evidence to back it up, it's just a claim.
Now, handing out private user data based on one mans ( already questionable ) word is probably a very bad idea for Twitter lest they be held accountable for anything that may happen because of it.
Should you send folks seizure inducing imagery ? Probably not, but Twitter had better tread very carefully here. The potential for abuse is high and Twitter will be on the hook for it.
What is "consent"? If it is anything less than a written (signed and solemnly notarized) note, how do we know, Trump didn't have it?
When Trump makes a statement without bountiful evidence to back it up, he is denounced as a liar — because absence of proof is, conveniently ("smoothly" you would say), is changed into proof of absence. For example:
Donald Trump Uses Twitter to Flat Out Lie About “Millions” of Illegal Votes in Election. See? No evidence, means it was not true — and he knew it to be untrue (otherwise it wouldn't be a "lie"): Trump never cites any sources and his campaign wouldn’t go into details about the claims but the information the president-elect is citing appears to have originated with the website InfoWars, which often pushes fringe far-right conspiracy theories. The story that claimed there were 3 million illegal votes was based on a couple of tweets that someone sent with absolutely no evidence. Why Does Donald Trump Lie About Voter Fraud? — same thing, a statement not backed up by irrefutable evidence is a lie. Not a mistake, not a hyperbole, a lie: There is not a scintilla of evidence for this claim, and Mr. Trump’s own lawyers have admitted as muchSo, if Trump's statements are lies unless proven (#PresumptionOfGuilt), how could he possibly prove having obtain consent from those women years ago? Only by getting it in writing... Which he failed to do and is, by the special rules created for Republican politicians, guilty.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
What bunch of small d assholes.
They're coming for Jew Goldstein.
To all the sociopaths here trying to excuse the sender's behavior, what you are trying to excuse here is literally attempted murder.
Grand mal seizures Carey a non-negligible risk of death. The tweeter sent the blinking lights to Eichenwald knowing that he had epilepsy and intending to trigger a grand mal seizure. Whether he opened it or not is immaterial. Just as if I heard that someone was trying to kill me and stayed away from my home, then he showed up and riddled my house with bullets hoping to kill me, he'd still be charged with attempted murder, since he acted intending to harm me in a way likely to lead to my death.
I don't care what your political stripe is, this is criminal behavior, just as it would be if it targeted Bill O'Reilly or Alex Jones.
The guy who perpetrated this belongs in federal prison where he can learn what fearing for his life every day is all about. And the psychos here defending him deserve the same.
" Eichenwald's aggressive coverage of President-elect Trump"
This won't go anywhere once the FBI discovers it was Russia again.