Page 96 - Cyber Warnings

Is Social Media Today s Newest Platform for Weaponry?: The

Kurt Eichenwald Story

Not all weapons are guns
By: Andrew L. Rossow, Esq.

You receive a Twitter message. You open it to find a still image with a “play” option. You hit
play. All of a sudden, an image flashes at you, continuously, displaying the words, “YOU
DESERVE A SEIZURE FOR YOUR POSTS!” Next thing you know, you regain consciousness
on the floor listening to your significant other calling the police because you just experienced a
seizure…from a tweet. Who is responsible?

Not all weapons are tangible objects, such as guns and knives. Some can be as simple as the
manipulation of a series of words or even a Graphic Interchange Format (GIF). Social media
has been the millennial generation’s newest and quickest source of information, both real and
“fake”, giving society the power to communicate and exchange information over short and long
distances.

But what happens when a social media platform such as Twitter is manipulated in such a way
that it is then used to cause physical harm, or even deadly harm to another individual? What
happens when a user sends a tweet, containing words, images, videos, and/or a GIF to a user
who is a known epileptic, with the intent of causing them to experience a seizure or even die?
Should these manipulated behaviors be regulated? Victims of social media crimes such as
cyberbullying and stalking would most likely answer in the affirmative. As of late, Kurt
Eichenwald, a Dallas journalist and senior editor with Newsweek, would answer abruptly in the
affirmative.

96 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – May 2017 Edition
Copyright © Cyber Defense Magazine, All rights reserved worldwide