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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.
Is it to late for me to file suit against the creators of all those geocities home pages I viewed back in the day?
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.
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?
There was a post on his account claiming to be his wife saying they filed a police report. Media has investigated and can fin no evidence of a report filed with various relevant police departments.
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.
Nor any evidence of a seizure.
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.
No one expects their details to be released to other users of the system.
This is not just "another user." It is the legal system, investigating an alleged assault.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
You (and the summary) leave out some significant info.
First - They've done this to him multiple times since September, knowing he has siesures
Second - They've threatened to murder him, even left things on his doorstep
Third - They broke into his Daughters school, leaving messages addressed to him threatening his daughter.
Details are important, and this is far past the line for being able to prosecute criminally for harassment and threatening harm.
Ah, the alt-right, back to blaming victims.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Not really the same. The post was literally "you deserve a seizure".
It is interesting that infohazards will likely be handled legally about as they should be.
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/...
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.
While some of his Tweets have been questionable in their content, what is the real problem with cutting the press corps out of the process? They were there to disseminate information, from the president to the people. The press corps serves no purpose now. We know for a fact that as far as large media outlets go, you can only get partisans. Left or Right, does not matter. Get rid of the press corps.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
back to blaming victims.
The problem with "stop victim blaming!!!" is that it ignores the many times when the victim is partially to blame for getting into a situation to begin with, especially if they escalated the situation with their own actions.
It would be assault, yes.
In this case it appears to be a lawsuit, but at the end of the day if the court deems this a legitimate case, criminal or civil, then the court has the authority to order Twitter to reveal whatever identifying data it may have on the defendant/accused.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yes, it was a flashing GIF that said, 'you deserve a seizure'. This was a deliberate attack.
http://cdn2.ubergizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/twitter-seizure.jpg
" Is it something intentionally crafted to induce seizures in epilepsy sufferers?"
That's exactly what it was, so yeah, pretty certain you can show 'intent to harm', thus assault.
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.
Would it be insensitive to call this a newsflash?
Yeah what the person responsible did was intentional harm, and I fully believe charges should be placed for it.
However, the bigger question comes, will this lead to the path of having any animation that can induce seizures anywhere online become legally liable?
It's always a problem, the first part makes sense, what it lets people do after is concerning. It's like schools, a child may have a peanut allergy, henceforth peanuts are completely banned from a school distract. I understand if a child within that school itself has an allergy to ban it from that school, but they'll blanket an entire distract with it flat out. More and more this world seems to be pushing towards the needs of the one out weighing the needs of the many.
I hope the person responsible is persecuted, but that nothing beyond that stems from the ruling.
In my experience, video on Twitter begins to play once it is fully scrolled in.
Sure. Care to provide example of the proverbial "other foot"?
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.
A false sense of persecution.
They believe that Twitter, who has willingly harbored their Nazi organization is somehow against them because one of their members who threatened to kill all jews and muslims was banned for a week over his threat.
Definition of assault that includes sending flashing gifs is controversial. Until there is a grand jury determination that assault possibly happened, Twitter is just taking sides in a civil dispute.
I hope you're equally outraged when it's on the other foot.
Well I certainly would be. Are you saying that you don't find it appalling for someone to deliberately try to induce a seizure in someone in response to an argument, regardless of 'foot'?
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
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 see the Washington Post investigating? That is much more meaningful than your comment.
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'
So in other words, a legal search regarding an illegal seizure. Got it.
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.
It will be hard to prove in court that the sender actually suspected a seizure would result.
The attached message 'you deserve a seizure' might be pretty good evidence. Sorry to get in the way of your rant though.
What if the sender puts a sign on it that says "I hope you go in to anaphylactic shock?"
If so, and the person ate it anyhow, I'd say that the sender would have a plausible defense. "Your honour, I knew he had a peanut allergy. I did not know he was also a complete and utter idiot."
Your posting exhibits a fascinating level of stupidity, even for an AC. The receiver in this case does not see the nature of the thing before he looks at it. That already is enough to cause damage. This is far more like a letter-bomb.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I don't see it as controversial at all. If you knowingly do someone bodily harm, then that is assault.
IANAL, but if I understand the distinction correctly (in those jurisdictions where it exists in law):
* If you knowingly do someone bodily harm, then that is BATTERY
* If you knowingly do to someone something that would make him reasonably believe you have put him at risk of bodily harm, then that is ASSAULT.
Swing at his nose and miss by a half inch, it's assault. (So is making threats, such as by moving into his personal space and waving your fist, or just yelling into his face from an inch away.) Swing and connect, and it's battery. If he sees it coming it's assault and battery. Use a tool that can inflict damage at a level risking life and limb, and it adds "with a deadly weapon" to the assault and/or battery.
It's quite something to attach "on a computer" and then declare that somehow you can argue away both intent and harm.
I agree.
Since it's the intentional causing of bodily harm in one case, and the intentional creation of a reasonable fear of bodily harm in the other, but bodily harm is not limited to any particular subset of harm that would exclude inducing (or attempting to induce) a seizure, a charge of assault would be appropriate even if the attempt to produce a seizure did not succeed, but did cause the recipient to be reasonably afraid it might.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The media has zero credibility. They asked no hard questions of the last administration. The public can look at the statements the second they are made. Questions can still be asked and anyone who wants can investigate the truth of the statements and comment.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
You (and the summary) leave out some significant info.
First - They've done this to him multiple times since September, knowing he has siesures Second - They've threatened to murder him, even left things on his doorstep Third - They broke into his Daughters school, leaving messages addressed to him threatening his daughter.
Details are important, and this is far past the line for being able to prosecute criminally for harassment and threatening harm.
Gonna need some sauce on these.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
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"
Depends on a lot of factors, really.
I mean the victim (I have to use some term for the person 10 feet away that's being swung at) could decline to press charges, or the prosecution could say that there's not a case to be had, and thus no point in taking it to court.
The police could say it's not worth arresting the person doing the swinging (although if you are publicly drunk and it's not St. Patrick's Day/Cinco De Mayo/New Year's Eve, then they will arrest you).
There's no clear-cut answer.
Now, all that assumes it's just a bare-knuckle punch-up. If weapons get involved, it gets much more serious and the police are much less likely to shrug it away that the aggressor was not within striking range.
I should note: I am not a lawyer. A lot of what I said is from either rooming with a law student or talking with cops.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Yes. If you try to assault someone with aid of their service, they will turn your information over to the authorities pursuant to a court order.
Ok, so Twitter was ordered by the 44th District Court, Dallas County, TX pursuant to the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure to... doxx somebody. Whatever you want to call it. See for yourself.
Who cares?
If somebody shoots at you, but misses, they still tried to kill you. Nobody would say 'oh, his feelings are just hurt that somebody was that mad at him.'
The accused formed a specific intent to harm, gathered the materials to carry out that intent, planned his assault, and carried it out. Guilty act plus guilty mind.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
They did no such thing. In editorials they may have supported Hillary, but their excessive attention on some emails that were much ado about nothing, and their utter failure to cover anything even remotely policy related (do you remember reading stories about the candidates' positions on climate change? No? Me either) were effectively an abdication of their responsibility to report responsibly on anything.
Trump played them--he was good ratings, and they need those now. Now they can bleat about how awful a president he is, giving them guaranteed revenue for the next 4 years as they play the conscientious objectors.
Intent is the point here. The attackers intent to cause harm is blindingly obvious, the video used serves no other purpose other than to cause a seizure in susceptible people. If they'd sent gore pics with the intent to make someone sick to their stomach and maybe lose their lunch, then that would be just a juvenile trick, but inducing a seizure in someone with epilepsy can be life-threatening. Add to this the other aggressive and violent acts that have been perpetrated against this guy and his family, and you have a pattern of behavior that clearly indicates the intent to cause bodily harm and/or death. Do you wait for someone to show up with a gun in their hand ready to kill before you act to stop them, or do you see the handwriting on the wall and stop them as soon as possible?
Too bad there's evidence that he filed the civil suit, with a court, case number, and filing date stamped right on it.
Puts the whole "this doesn't exist" theory to shame...
explain the banning of milo, prominent trump supporter, and also gay (because that somehow matters to some)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
A warning of "don't look" requires you to look in order to read the warning...
They are turning it over to the court under order as part of the discovery process. The court is directing that the information go to the plaintiff.
When committing a tort, the tortfeasor gets responsibility for all consequences, intended or not. Considering the text accompanying the image was "you deserve a seizure", it's pretty clear what the intent was. It certainly shows that the sender was very much aware that a seizure was possible.
Assumes facts not in evidence. The dispatcher could just as easily ask for them to file a written complaint with an officer. As I've had happen to me before.
Quite simply, prove it.
If he sees it coming it's assault and battery.
Does he actually have to see it coming, or would he only have to have considered it a threat if he had seen it? I don't think that you have to have awareness for assault. I think it's the attempt to do harm that makes it assault.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm in no way contesting these specific individuals, but if you pay attention to how law works, every time something occurs, it will be referred to in future rulings to convince the judge to rule in favor of a party.
Hypothetically it could be then "Well, this site has content that can cause seizures and it showed up on my news feed or on an advertisement, and in case X where someone submitted content to another user that can cause seizures their information was revealed etc etc."
The problem doesn't become the spirit of the ruling, it becomes the letters of the law. More simplified. Original issue..
"Party A maliciously sent multiple damaging images to party B" Case successful. ....
"Party A maliciously sent one damaging image to party B" Well, see the ruling in case one, the judge decided in favor. Judge influenced, case successful.
"Party A sent multiple damaging images to party B, and should have been aware it could cause harm" Well, see the ruling for case one and two where this content was sent to people and caused seizures. Judge agrees, case successful.
"Party A sent
Until you get down to "Party A publicly submitted content that they knew would be viewed by many viewers, some who may have conditions to cause seizures and should have been aware of it and is responsible since it's a public medium" If the next case was the final case, and the only had case 1 to reference, it'd like be called bullshit. But as each case morphs slightly, it makes the legal gap smaller and smaller until you can nail someone for a flashing ad.
Mind you I hate flashing ads, and it's not even medically threatening to me, but you get the point. It can eventually be converted out of the original pretext and used and abused.
That's what I meant.
I have epilepsy.
I can't speak for everyone, but I don't even get the opportunity to look away. By the time I've recognized that the image is harmful, it's too late.
Seizures suck. They usually cost me a couple of days of work, cut up my lips and tongue (from biting) and damage muscles in my arms and legs. The person who sent that image needs to be prosecuted - they had a real intent to cause harm.
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.
It takes a special kind of asshole to think that it's blaming the victim here. He has epilepsy. He knows he has epilepsy. Thanks to the Internet, everyone including your grandma knows he has epilepsy. If he was PRUDENT, he would have disabled ANIMATION AUTOPLAY. It's disabled by default on my browser and I don't have epilepsy. If he clicked "play" and got a seizure, well... the "victim" deserves to be blamed.
That being said, I doubt it was the same level of intentional harm that has happened in the past. Because Kurt has been trolling Twitter for quite a while, poking people to get a response. Very nice and journalistic of him, to be sure. Note that this asinine behavior from a douche like Kurt doesn't excuse the specific attempts to harm him, this one seems simply a case of him being already unhinged after his appearance on the talk show and his 40-tweet rant about the CIA and Trump. Seeing the tweet with the words "you deserve a seizure" made him go finally full retard and threaten everyone with jail and fines and beatings because he was feeling butthurt.
I read the whole thread in real time, so spare me the bullshit, AC. I know he's milking this for sympathy after his rant and implosion on Tucker Carlson's show.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
You don't "open" Tweets. This isn't email. There's no "subject". The body of the message, which would have been viewed at the same time the video started playing, contained those words.
Is it too much to ask people not to comment on communication systems they've evidently never seen before?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
He violated the ToS several times. He finally posted faked tweets in an attempt to harass another person on Twitter, and Twitter dropped the banhammer.
This is all public domain. Why do you need it explained to you? Most conservatives don't do this, which is why most conservatives still have Twitter accounts, including Trump himself.
(That said, right now, I'd close Trump's accounts but on national security grounds, not because of the ToS or because of his politics.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
SJWs who need their safe spaces
You mean like Pence and Trump?
https://mobile.twitter.com/rea...
There's Trump calling for a safe space for Pence. Doesn't that make them SJWs now? I lose track of what it's supposed to mean now because it gets used so much. I think it means "someone I don't like and by the way I'm a fuckwit".
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I don't get why people try to defend things by saying "what about what so and so did?"
Because that is the level of sophistication people who defend this stuff have. Their only defence is "this is war, so it's justified". They also think it helps to accuse people they don't like of doing all the things that they themselves are doing. Standard wartime propaganda.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Well, if you ...
If you nothing. You're completely ignoring my point. If you attempt to assault someone, and they fail to get out of the way, YOU are guilty, no matter how easily they could have got out of the way, and rightly so.
Don't believe me? Try it and see if the judge agrees with me or you. When you find out the result, let me know the terms of the sentencing.
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.
The Republican media and political leadership made a conscious choice decades ago to demonize Democrats. It has worked. They've convinced about 35% of the people that millions of their fellow Americans are not just misguided, but are evil and trying to undermine the country.
Democrats support gun control, not to reduce gun violence, but to make it easier to send you to the gas chamber.
Democrats support civil rights not because they love freedom, but because they hate white people.
Democrats support granting refuge to refugees not out of compassion, but because they want to sneak Sharia Law into the country.
Democrats support environmental protection not out of concern for the environment (Al Gore flies in a jet!), but to destroy your jobs.
Democrats support a welfare state not because they want to ease the plight of the poor, but to perpetuate a modern day slavery.
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