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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.
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?
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.
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.
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.