On Friday,Watch Sukeban Deka the Movie 2: Counter Kurt Eichenwald, a prominent liberal journalist and senior writer at Newsweek, announced that he would be temporarily leaving Twitter after a troll gave him a seizure.
According to Eichenwald's tweets, a "deplorable" troll seemingly aware that the reporter had epilepsy tweeted a strobe with the message, "you deserve a seizure." Shortly after, the reporter claimed that he did in fact, suffer a seizure. Eichenwald then claimed he would be pursuing legal action and only using his Twitter account to share copies of documents related to the crime.
SEE ALSO: 'Trumpgrets' is the Tumblr page for Trump supporters who just can't take him anymoreIn a series of tweets, Eichenwald decried the online anonymity that allows violence like this to happen.
For self-protection, I am taking a short twitter break. I will be spending that time with my lawyers & law enforcement going after 1 of u...
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016
Last night, for the second time, a deplorable aware I have epilepsy tweeted a strobe at me with the message "you deserve a seizure' on it...
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016
...it worked. This is not going to happen again. My wife is terrified. I am...disgusted. All I will be tweeting for the next few days are...
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016
...copies of documents from the litigation, police reports etc. Once we have the lawsuit filed, we will be subpoenaing Twitter for the...
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016
...a federal crime because it appears to be cross state. This kind of assault will never happen again without huge consequences. This...
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016
...individual will be going to court, and he will be paying a price. And if any of you others ever try this again, I will make sure it...
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016
Twitter account @jew_goldstein, which has since been suspended, appears to have claimed responsibility for the attack. A cache of the page exists here.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable Eichenwald came under fire after a controversial interview with Fox's Tucker Carlson. He subsequently posted dozens of tweets about Tucker Carlson, many of which have been deleted.
.@kurteichenwald deleted his tweetstorm about @TuckerCarlson. I managed to screenshot most of it. pic.twitter.com/PxH79OnqWh
— John Rust (@johnrust) December 16, 2016
While many epileptic seizures occur spontaneously, others are precipitated by environmental causes, including stress and lack of sleep. Dr. Nathan Fountain, Director of the epilepsy program at the University of Virginia, flashing lights can also trigger seizures in a subset of people:
"Some people have a predisposition to flashing lights . . . In general we ask people to avoid flashing lights," Fountain told Mashable. "I've never heard about it (sending someone a flashing GIF) happening as an attack, but the epilepsy community has a great concern that it could happen."
Previously, Fountain explained, some Japanese children had seizures after a watching a Pokemon episode t hat had too many flashing lights. While it may seem strange for someone to get a seizure from a GIF, it's within the range of possibility, Fountain said.
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