US investigative jury finds animated gif equivalent to ‘deadly weapon’
A US grand jury has ruled in a lawsuit that a sent animated gif with strong flashing elements, which was supposed to cause an epileptic seizure in the recipient with epilepsy, is equivalent to an attack with a deadly weapon.
On Monday, John Rayne Rivello was charged with assaulting a Newsweek journalist, Kurt Eichenwald. Last year Rivello sent an animated gif to Eichenwald. Eichenwald had previously publicly announced that he has epilepsy. Rivello is said to have sent the animated gif with a flashing strobe effect out of dissatisfaction with Eichenwald’s critical piece about US President Trump.
The grand jury has assessed the tweet containing the animated gif as an “electronic device” and has equated it with a deadly weapon with which Rivelo assaulted Eichenwald. According to the jury, with the tweet in question, Rivelo knowingly inflicted physical harm on Eichenwald by inducing an epileptic seizure.
The authorities’ complaint states that this tweet was accompanied by the text ‘you deserve an attack for your message’. Rivello had often sent such texts to Eichenwald via Twitter, and he knew that Eichenwald suffered from epilepsy. After seeing the animated gif, Eichenwald actually became a victim of an epileptic seizure.
Rivello sent the gif in a tweet via an account called “Ari Goldstein.” Twitter previously sent all data about this account to the police, but the disguised email address and the links to a prepaid phone didn’t get the police much further. The provider AT&T made a breakthrough after the company found that the SIM card in question was being used by an iPhone 6. An account with the same number was then searched in iCloud and the researchers came to John Rivelo.
Lawyers differ on whether Rivelo can derive protection from freedom of expression in this case. A lawyer not involved in the case, who is more likely to defend people suspected of committing criminal acts on the internet, has said that freedom of expression could potentially help Rivello’s defense. He could argue that the animated gif was a work of art covered by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which includes freedom of expression.
A University of Maryland internet security expert disagrees, arguing that the animated gif showed no expression of any kind and in no way spread the creator’s views or opinions. As a result, the expression would not fall under the freedom of expression.
In 2008 there was already a similar case in which malicious parties wanted to trigger an epileptic seizure via pictures. It was then about hackers who managed to place hundreds of quickly flashing images on the website via a vulnerability in the website of the American epilepsy foundation. Some users of the website reported that they did get headaches and other symptoms that often precede an epileptic seizure, but these users ultimately did not report an actual seizure.