The Epilepsy Foundation files criminal complaint against 30+ unidentified Twitter users for coordinated attack of seizure-inducing videos to its feed last month
This is the second time a seizure-inducing online attack has reached federal attention: in 2017 the FBI arrested a user who tweeted a strobing image at Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald an arrest that treated the tweet as assault. What changed this month is scale — instead of one target, the Epilepsy Foundation's criminal complaint names 30+ unidentified accounts that flooded its feed and epilepsy hashtags with flashing videos during National Epilepsy Awareness Month.
Days after the complaint surfaced, Twitter moved against the vector itself, blocking animated PNGs it said had slipped through via a bug and ignored autoplay settings the animated-PNG block — meaning the same feature could hit any motion-sensitive user, not just the Foundation's followers.
First-order effects
Thirty-plus unidentified Twitter users now face criminal investigation, shifting the case from platform moderation to law enforcement identification and prosecution.
The Epilepsy Foundation becomes both victim and complainant, converting its awareness-month visibility into a legal test of whether mass online strobing counts as assault rather than harassment.
Second-order effects
Twitter was forced into a product fix within a week, blocking animated PNGs entirely because they bypassed autoplay settings — a moderation gap exposed only after the complaint made the harm undeniable.
Other platforms hosting autoplaying media face pressure to audit whether their own animation formats respect reduced-motion preferences before similar attacks land there.
Third-order effects
If prosecutors treat coordinated flashing-video campaigns as physical assault, platform features that bypass accessibility controls become criminal-justice matters, pushing accessibility settings from preference to safety infrastructure.
The pattern — single-victim attack, then coordinated organizational attack, then emergency platform patch — points toward regulators treating media-format bugs as public-safety defects rather than ordinary product issues.
The trend: Online platforms are being pushed from self-regulated content moderation toward criminal-law accountability when their media features can be weaponized to cause physical harm.
Trying to cause seizures in people with epilepsy is reprehensible. “Conduct like this does not constitute speech, nor should it. A deliberate attempt to cause physical injury to someone does not come close to the expression which the First Amendment is designed to protect.” https…
@kurteichenwald
Kurt Eichenwald on x
Following a mass attack on its @twitter followers by people tweeting strobes at them, the @EpilepsyFdn has filed a federal criminal complaint with US Attorney in Maryland. When will these idiots figure out we won't let them try to kill or hurt us anymore? https://www.epilepsy.com…
@youngepilepsy
Young Epilepsy on x
If you have photosensitive epilepsy you might want to consider disabling the auto play feature for videos. 👉 Find out how to do this on Twitter here - https://help.twitter.com/... https://www.nytimes.com/...
@ali
@ali on x
Two things are true here. There are crimes in this piece; intent and process is well documented. Open and shut case. Also, Kurt Eichenwald is a well documented liar and uses threats, deplatforming and lawfare to silence his critics. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@nytnational
@nytnational on x
The Epilepsy Foundation reported 30 such attacks in the first week of November, and said it had filed complaints with law enforcement authorities, including with the United States Attorney's Office in Maryland https://www.nytimes.com/...
@davidjoachim
David S. Joachim on x
NEW: A Maryland man is expected to plead guilty to aggravated assault for sending a strobe GIF on Twitter to my former NYT colleague @kurteichenwald, causing him to suffer an epileptic seizure “You deserve a seizure for your posts,” the man wrote https://www.nytimes.com/... https…
@jtregunna
Jeremy Tregunna on x
This makes me mad, as someone with epilepsy, even though I'm not photosensitive I do know how much this is an attack on those people who are, and it's enraging. https://twitter.com/...
@cnn
@cnn on x
A Twitter cyberattack on the Epilepsy Foundation posted strobing images that could trigger seizures, the organization says https://www.cnn.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@izusuki
@izusuki on x
yall may think i'm problematic but at least i'm not being investigated by the fbi because of my tweets. https://twitter.com/...
@shanvav
Shannon Vavra on x
.@EpilepsyFdn followers were targeted w strobe light GIF/vid posts on @Twitter that can trigger seizures for people w epilepsy. I'm told the handle wasn't hacked to do the targeting — but it's a reminder platforms can be weaponized to cause physical harm. https://www.cyberscoop.c…
@campuscodi
Catalin Cimpanu on x
NEW: The Epilepsy Foundation files a criminal complaint against users who posted seizure-inducing videos on its Twitter and popular epilepsy hashtags during National Epilepsy Awareness Month https://www.zdnet.com/... https://twitter.com/...