FBI Arrests Man For Allegedly Sending Journalist Seizure-Causing GIF

http://gizmodo.com/fbi-arrests-man-for-allegedly-sending-journalist-seizur-1793375081

by mudil • 9 years ago

61 98 9 years ago

M_Grey15• 9 years ago

You know, if the man had fallen and died, this would be an open-and-shut case of 2nd degree murder via "depraved indifference".

zipwitch• 9 years ago

Obligatory _Snow Crash_ reference along with the increasingly redundant observation that we really are living in a cyberpunk dystopia.

sauronlord5• 9 years ago

What's next?

Sending pictures of hamburgers, porn, candy and alcohol will be illegal because it can cause people to become obese, suffer stroke, and disease, and an erection.

In other news, the proprietors of hundreds of optical illusion sites have had their homes raided and being kept in prison cells for inciting physical distress on the public.

Soon there will be takedown requests to remove search results for sites that discuss optical illusions or link to sites that link to sites that -may- cause some physical distress

GabrielF00• 9 years ago

This was done on purpose - the individual specifically said he was doing it to cause a seizure. It's not comparable to hypotheticals you described.

sauronlord5• 9 years ago

Oh, so Big Food, Pharma, Alcohol are not intentionally making you crave the shitty addictive foods that we know cause those symptoms?

M_Grey15• 9 years ago

No, it's like you being deathly allergic to shellfish, and me coating your glass with shrimp extract. It's a clear attempt to harm without any concern for potentially injurious or fatal outcomes.

sauronlord5• 9 years ago

That's poisoning someone.

mackal• 9 years ago

Let's remove the internet from the equation. So you have a grudge with someone, you know they have epilepsy, so you assault them to trigger one. Is this a crime? Most likely, I know if I had epilepsy I would hope so (and judging from this article I think it is) So why is it ridiculous for assaulting someone on Twitter specifically to trigger a seizure some how ridiculous that it's a crime?

pyre3• 9 years ago

Because then we can't treat the Internet like the wild west and do a bunch of stuff that the law would have prevented us from doing before... /s

adventured• 9 years ago

More than 40 ppl sent strobes once they found out they could trigger seizures.

I'd like to see you explain how that isn't an intentional attempt to physically harm the journalist in question.

There are dozens of things that fall under the same legal category, such as pranks (often harmless unless they go wrong) that end up physically harming someone, that will properly get you in serious trouble.

coding1232• 9 years ago

That's actually one of the sad things about the internet, it can instantly bring out the worst in people. I suspect if people know seizures can result in death fewer would have done it, but there would still have been people doing it. I wouldn't mind if they arrested all 40, gave them a day in jail so they could think about their actions, and also let the world know there are consequences for it.

Vosporos2• 9 years ago

Nah, what's next is that you will see a friend of yours die because of their allergies to a product that wasn't indicated on the package. Will you spit on the grave, or will you realize that you aren't alone in this world and your apparent absence of triggers doesn't prevent you from being a shithead?

Cheers, and happy St. Patrick.

sauronlord5• 9 years ago

Nice ad-hominem.

This is a philosophical debate and we are on a very interesting line that is worthy of passionate discussion.

It is not as clear cut as many people say.

We aggressively advertise harmful substances to people, KNOWING full well that MILLIONS of people will be imprinted at a young age and result in disastrous consequences for their health (Seizures! And more).

Giving kids sugar at a young age and making them addicted to sugary cereals with "prizes" in the box should result in a much greater pumishment than what these chumps did.

I know they are on a different scale. But your reaction is a pre-reflective one and likely due to the novelty of this "assault".

We will see if these writings are vindicated or not based on a guilty/not-guilty. Then we can read the Judge's PDF and see what philosophical consideratioms were at play.

chc• 9 years ago

In other news, false equivalences lead to bad conclusions. The same action can be beneficent in some contexts, malicious in others, and even neutral in still others — think a surgeon cutting someone vs. an assassin cutting someone vs. somebody handing you a document that gives you a papercut. Treating all these cases as though they're equivalent would be ridiculous and not at all useful.

coding1232• 9 years ago

I think on the face of it these types of things sound ridiculous. For example everyone knows that murder is murder. And everyone knows that an accident is an accident. But what might seem like an accident, but was actually perpetrated on purpose because of knowledge of a condition, that's murder.

Going back to reality: Someone severely allergic to peanuts is killed with peanuts in their food by a mistake: accident. Someone severely allergic to peanuts is killed with peanuts in their food because someone added them on purpose with knowledge of the condition? Murder.

Luckily, seizures don't always result in death.

Now to confound the issue here? The internet is already filled with blinking gifs, so this case is much more complicated.

tptacek3• 9 years ago

Not really. Message board nerds may not care much about intent, but intent is most of what the law cares about. If it's really the GIF this person is being charged for, then the prosecution will simply present evidence to prove to a jury that the accused deliberately attempted to trigger a Eichenwald's seizure.

The mechanics of how they tried to do that will be of secondary importance, except to the extent that the law will likely care that whatever mechanism was used did in fact stand a good chance of causing a seizure.

dragonwriter2• 9 years ago

Message board nerds may not care much about intent, but intent is most of what the law cares about.

More accurately, mental state (of which intent is but one aspect) is a substantial part of the definition of most crimes.

mindslight3• 9 years ago

You've mischaracterized it as a strawman of "message board nerds", but it's actually a respectable philosophical distinction between purely executable semantics and ambient authority.

Executable semantics are more scalable, being a core innovation that allowed the Internet to flourish - eg a router doesn't care about the intent of a packet, but only its destination address. (ISPs are doing their best to undermine the e2e principle, attempting to infer intent to extract more value than can be gotten from commodity service, but I digress).

If we want to follow the implications of executable semantics, then an epileptic should have software which prevents harmful signals from being shown on their screen. This seems onerous, except for the ultimate alternative being a single world jurisdiction to enable post-facto prosecution of cross-border "intent", and destruction of Internet anonymity to effect this.

A signal filter also seems to be a more practical device than say a content filter to block scams for a cognitively-impaired older person, which is the accepted state of affairs even for intranational snail mail (eg Publishers' Clearinghouse).

(note: I've said nothing condoning the actual act of attempting to give a person a seizure, but only how we should analyze the systems that have given rise to this capability. The simplistic reaction of focusing blame on the (essentially stochastic) perpetrator is helping to push us down the path of unsustainable centralization)

kristofferR• 9 years ago

Just something blinking doesn't cause a seizure, the blinking has to be a certain frequency to induce it.

Also important in this case is that the seizure gif in question was personalized with the message “You deserve a seizure for your postings.” That make the case similar to force feeding peanuts to a guy you know have a severe peanut allergy.

donatj3• 9 years ago

On the one hand, those are awful horrible people who sent him the gifs, on the other hand I feel like sending someone a gif is protected free speech? I'm very torn.

Also I don't know what app he is using but they don't autoplay for me… So it seems… avoidable.

M_Grey15• 9 years ago

Well... no. If you could say a magic word that induced a seizure, you would be prohibited from saying that too.

donatj3• 9 years ago

I think there are a number of words that "trigger" certain people, and it's well within my legal rights to say them.

vonkow2• 9 years ago

Just like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater (where there is no fire), sending someone a gif in the hopes that it causes a seizure is not protected speech. It's assult.

cloakandswagger• 9 years ago

Slippery slope. If I tell someone on the internet to kill themselves and it turns out they're actually suicidally depressed, should I be charged with a crime?

What if I post something that's just really offensive? I feel like we've entered a time where people would gladly see the First Amendment trodden over if it means seeing "justice" doled out to nasty people.

ggreer• 9 years ago

I agree that the first amendment doesn't apply in this case, but the "fire in a crowded theater" analogy is only used by people who aren't aware of its origin. The phrase was coined by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in WWI, in a SCOTUS decision to imprison socialists for leafleting against the draft.[1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

pyre3• 9 years ago

It's not illegal for me to serve people food with peanuts. It is illegal for me to serve peanuts to someone that is allergic with the intent to cause them harm. There is no "slippery slope" that serving peanuts to anyone will become illegal.

darkstar999• 9 years ago

Slippery slope? What if I post a seizure gif to twitter, not addressed to anyone in particular? Can I be charged if some random person sees it?

tekklloneer• 9 years ago

Not at all. Unless you tag it with a person you know vulnerable to seizures, and then on top of that, brag about it.

diabeetusman• 9 years ago

You can swing your arms around as much as you like, but if you swing them into someone's face, that's illegal. As someone posted above, you can make food with peanuts as much as you'd like, but if you sneak peanuts into someone's meal who you know is allergic to peanuts, that's illegal.

Tweeting gifs? Fine. Tweeting gifs at someone with the intent to cause harm? Illegal

jawns• 9 years ago

[Deleted]

toomuchtodo• 9 years ago

What if I send you baked goods with peanuts in them without telling you, knowing it might kill you?

Analemma_2• 9 years ago

The victim not taking the appropriate steps to avoid something harmful to them is never, ever a defense in assault cases. It's not as if we punish muggers less severely if they mugged someone in a bad neighborhood where the victim shouldn't have been walking.

Even if the person here hadn't known that Eichenwald had epilepsy, they could still be charged, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull. So the fact that they did know and intentionally caused an attack is certainly punishable.

burkaman• 9 years ago

It doesn't matter what steps you take. If you leave all your doors unlocked and your windows open and tell the world you have $1 million in cash inside, it's still a crime to rob you.

molecule• 9 years ago

The key here is intent to cause harm.

partkyle• 9 years ago

Like, if I'm severely allergic to peanuts, then I take reasonable steps to avoid them, such as not patronizing a restaurant that uses peanuts in its food.

What if someone made you a sandwich and didn't tell you there were peanuts in it with the intent of causing a reaction? Eating the sandwich could have been avoided, but you wouldn't know that until you took a bite.

berberous• 9 years ago

This should clearly be a criminal offense. I do not think someone should be held responsible if they post seizure inducing GIFs with no ill intent, but this guy @ replied the journalist so it showed up on his Twitter feed, with a message accompanying the gif saying that he deserved a seizure.

khazhou2• 9 years ago

Anyone have a link to good GIFs? I couldn't find any. I'm very curious to see what these look like.

[edit] Found this based on suggestion below. Obviously, don't click if you're seizure-prone: http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb217/powercrazy13/you-de...

I guess I'm not epileptic. It's pretty uncomfortable to look at for a long stretch though. Anyone know what happens if a non-epileptic stares at an image like this, say, for an hour?

usernametbd• 9 years ago

Weird how mind works. I clicked the link ONLY to see if the gifs are there. Didn't read a single line in the article, closed and came to comments to see if it's here.

elastic_church• 9 years ago

its more efficient, many times

generalledger• 9 years ago

In as much as the FBI just arrested a dude for this... I wont post a link. But do a search for "you deserve a seizure" and you'll see.

gus_massa• 9 years ago

I guess I'm not epileptic.

Only a small part of the epileptic people is sensible to the flashing light. Some are affected by strong strip patterns instead. Most are totally not affected by this, and their seizures can be triggered by other means.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy

Photosensitive epilepsy (PSE) is a form of epilepsy in which seizures are triggered by visual stimuli that form patterns in time or space, such as flashing lights, bold, regular patterns, or regular moving patterns.

From http://www.epilepsy.com/learn/triggers-seizures/photosensiti...

For about 3 percent of people with epilepsy, exposure to flashing lights at certain intensities or to certain visual patterns can trigger seizures. This condition is known as photosensitive epilepsy.

Overtonwindow2• 9 years ago

Maybe I'm missing it but what, precisely, is this guy charged with?

maxvu• 9 years ago

There's a PDF of an incident report linked: assault.

Overtonwindow2• 9 years ago

Assault ....via the Internet‽ That's a new one. I can't wait to see this played out in court.

wnevets3• 9 years ago

If random gifs can trigger your seizures then maybe you need to browse the internet with gifs disabled.

M_Grey15• 9 years ago

Right. If I can break into your house, I should get your stuff. You should have had better locks and thicker doors. /s

wnevets3• 9 years ago

How are those two even remotely similar?

castis2• 9 years ago

My knee jerk reaction was to respond "Well hold on now, that doesn't sound right..." but I'm now guessing you're trying to point out some absurdity in OPs comment?

drdaeman3• 9 years ago

That doesn't follow.

If one's allergic they should avoid allergens. If one's known to be prone to seizures, they'd better avoid the cause. This doesn't mean its their fault, neither it implies that others are completely free to exploit this weakness. Yet, it still makes sense to take precautions.

tptacek3• 9 years ago

That may well be the case, but if you purposefully present a flashing GIF to someone you know to have epilepsy for the purpose of attempting to induce a seizure, the laws of pretty much every state will say you've committed at least simple assault, and probably felony assault.

exabrial• 9 years ago

Yikes. While I feel bad for the journalist, this has some serious implications

Analemma_2• 9 years ago

It really doesn't. This is assault and battery, and will be punished like any other assault and battery case.

goda90• 9 years ago

How technically difficult would it be to make a browser extension that detects and pauses videos and gifs that might cause a seizure? Are the conditions that cause seizures pretty well known so that something specific can be detected?

151552• 9 years ago

Videos - disable autoplay.

GIFs - adblock them? as far as detection goes - you could detect vast color shifts at high frequencies.

bassman9000• 9 years ago

Twitter doesn't play them if you don't want to. He stated that happened to him before. And still didn't disable autoplay. No case.

hl54• 9 years ago

Eichenwald has made many enemies and intentionally became part of his own reporting. He is his own victim. That a reporter like that would challenge the first amendment with a naive emotionally charged approach should give anyone pause.

http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39957/

catshirt4• 9 years ago

"challenge the first amendment"

sorry, what? i don't think assault is protected by the first amendment. at the risk of sounding naive i have to ask why Manson wasn't protected under the first amendment?

hl54• 9 years ago

Perhaps Muslims are owed justice for the imagery assaulting their prophet?

Is assault possible with only words and images? If it entices someone to commit acts of violence, yes. If it is the words themselves that cause injury, the reader has the option to not engage in risky behavior.

Nugem_• 9 years ago

Imagine if the man viewed this while driving, crashed and died or killed others.

mnm1• 9 years ago

Then I'd have no sympathy for him and if he survived he should be put in jail for manslaughter, possibly even murder. The guy knows these devices do this to him yet continues to use them. If he's using these devices behind the wheel (or IMO at all) he's being irresponsible. He needs to take responsibility for his actions and stop blaming others. In other words, he's responsible for his own actions (using devices that can cause seizures) and their consequences (getting a seizure) like everyone else at all times.

FBI Arrests Man For Allegedly Sending Journalist Seizure-Causing GIF

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