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On December 15 , 2016, another attempt made, later revealed to have been successful,
centered around another Twitter user who used Twitter to send a GIF to Mr. Eichenwald, in
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hopes that he would experience a seizure and/or death. A GIF is an animated image that
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plays automatically upon receipt and only stops when the recipient clicks it to pause or stop it.
Mr. Eichenwald revealed the nature of what happened, to the best of his recollection, on Good
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Morning America with George Stephanopoulos.
Mr. Eichenwald fell victim to the Twitter user, “@jew_goldstein”, a ‘deplorable’. 13 The user sent
a tweet to Mr. Eichenwald, containing a GIF of a flashing, strobing image playing the message,
“YOU DESERVE A SEIZURE FOR YOUR POSTS.” The post, which has since been removed
from Mr. Eichenwald’s account, caused Mr. Eichenwald to experience a seizure, where his wife
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found him on their bathroom floor. At that point, his wife took a screen shot of the GIF,
although when depicted below, is shown to simply be a still image. According to reports, Mr.
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Eichenwald was bed-ridden for twenty-four (24) hours and was unlikely to drive for months.

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Credit: MediaIte ; Twitter (now removed from the account)
In response to the user’s tweet, Mr. Eichenwald’s wife sent out a tweet from his profile
announcing that her husband had indeed suffered a seizure and the account information was
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being turned over to the police for potential claims of assault. Since the incident, Mr.

10 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/technology/social-media-attack-that-set-off-a-seizure-leads-to-an-
arrest.html; http://www.businessinsider.com/kurt-eichenwald-twitter-strobes-epilepsy-seizures-2016-12;
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/20/newsweek-kurt-eichenwald-twitter-epilepsy-seizure;
11 https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/03/what-is-a-gif.html
12 http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/newsweek-reporter-twitter-induced-seizure-claim-44297849
13 http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2017/03/17/fbi-arrests-man-accused-trolling-dallas-journalist-kurt-
eichenwald-tweet-triggered-seizure; http://www.newsweek.com/kurt-eichenwald-twitter-seizure-arrest-john-rivello-
569813;
14 http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/newsweek-reporter-twitter-induced-seizure-claim-44297849
15 Id.
16 http://www.mediaite.com/online/kurt-eichenwald-claims-twitter-troll-gave-him-seizure-taking-social-media-
hiatus/; please note that this image can no longer be found on Twitter, as it was immediately removed by Mr.
Eichenwald.
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https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/809616876011749376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2F
98 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – May 2017 Edition
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