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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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
So in other words, a legal search regarding an illegal seizure. Got it.
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."
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?
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.