The Epilepsy Foundation has made a criminal complaint and is seeking an investigation after trolls put seizure-inducing flashing and strobing videos and Gifs on its Twitter page to target people with epilepsy during National Epilepsy Awareness Month.
"These attacks are no different than a person carrying a strobe light into a convention of people with epilepsy and seizures, with the intention of inducing seizures and thereby causing significant harm to the participants," the charity's legal advocacy director, Allison Nichol, commented, reports the BBC. "The fact that these attacks came during National Epilepsy Awareness Month only highlights their reprehensible nature."
She added that the foundation plans to use "all available avenues to ensure that those responsible are held fully accountable."
Around 3% of people are susceptible to visual patterns or flashing lights at certain intensities and have a condition called photosensitive epilepsy, a condition more prevalent among children and adolescents than adults.
"When it comes to deliberately targeting people with epilepsy with the intention of causing a seizure, we need to call that behavior what it is: a pre-meditated and pre-planned intention to assault," said UK Epilepsy Society chief executive Clare Pelham said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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