FBI Arrests Alleged Attacker Who Tweeted Seizure-Inducing Strobe at a Writer (theverge.com)

From a report on The Verge: An arrest has been made three months after someone tweeted a seizure-inducing strobe at writer and Vanity Fair contributing editor Kurt Eichenwald. The Dallas FBI confirmed the arrest to The Verge today, and noted that a press release with more details is coming. Eichenwald, who has epilepsy, tweeted details of the arrest and said that more than 40 other people also sent him strobes after he publicized the first attack. Their information is now with the FBI, he says. It isn't clear whether these "different charges" relate to similar online harassment incidents or something else entirely.

Comments

Slippery slope

[mi]

If on the other hand, I deliberately try to serve cookies containing peanuts to you, knowing you're deathly allergic to peanuts

Peanut allergy is real. So, apparently, is the effect of strobing images on epileptics. But it is still worrying...

Recall, that "trigger warnings" are already "a thing". What if my political opinion "triggers" somebody — causing them pain and/or other suffering? For now, such snowflakes are content to escape the brutal realities of life in "safe spaces". Unfortunately, those prolifereate and are already used to silence certain opinions.

True, FBI is not yet used to go after the "triggering" folks, but that can't be far off. When the current crop of students enters real life and their careers place (some of) them into actual decision-making positions, Law Enforcement will equate such triggering with assault — and doctors, currently in pre-med at those same campuses, will certify in court that the "victims'" "pain" is real...

Oh, and did you know, movement is seriously afoot to make "hate speech" a crime too?

tell someone that my intention is to do you harm

Yep. Right here... I do consider certain Illiberals to be beyond repair and do wish to make them uncomfortable — my very /. signatures are designed to mock something they hold dear. Intentionally.

Whatever this intent says about my own character flaws, it is still protected by the First Amendment today. But we are already sliding down the slippery slope... The First Amendment may be protecting a nebulous "right" to sell pornography (except for the child sort, for some reason), as well as to (quietly!) video-tape police. But, if the current trends aren't reversed, it will — in a generation — become illegal to say certain things because of the "painful reaction" such speech might cause...