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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday December 18 2016, @06:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the physical-assault-in-a-virtual-world dept.

Newsweek journalist Kurt Eichenwald, who is known to be suffering from epilepsy, reported on twitter that someone tweeted him a seizure-inducing image. This is not the first time it happened, but this attempt was (apparently) successful in triggering a seizure.

This might be the first physical attack on a person perpetrated via the internet. A sad point in history, in my view.

Links: coverage from Ars Technica, Eichenwald's Twitter feed. I'm not linking to the offending image - you're big enough to find it on your own and apparently it is quite horrible even for people who do not suffer from epilepsy.

Eichenwald has tweeted that he is involving law enforcement.

Any ideas on how hard it would be to filter out seizure-inducing media (make it click-to-view/play)?


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 19 2016, @12:32AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 19 2016, @12:32AM (#442874) Journal

    I think the number one cause of seizures is being epileptic. I've met a number of epileptics, and no two of them seem to have the same symptoms, signs of problems, or whatever. Met one woman who knew when a seizure was coming, she would sit down, and focus her mind on getting through it. I guess it worked for her almost all the time. Other people didn't have a clue that they were about to have a seizure. Just BANG, out of nowhere.

    I'm not epileptic, but some of those flashing images on the web make me wonder sometimes. The image loads, and I have an instant headache, and feel nauseous.

    It takes a sorry human being to intentionally subject an epileptic to one of these things. I really don't know about assault charges, but something should happen to the jerk.

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