There’s been talk—including here—that Kurt Eichenwald is going a little too far in being so open about his vow to take down the deplorable who deliberately gave him a seizure on Thursday by tweeting a strobe GIF at him. I disagree. Eichenwald is doing exactly what needs to be done here.
A number of Kossacks who, like Eichenwald, have epilepsy have stated that Eichenwald could have been killed that night. Ursulafaw, for instance, has a more personal perspective on the Eichenwald attack. This was nothing less than criminal assault and battery—by someone who thought Twitter would provide him with enough anonymity that he could slink away unnoticed. He’s about to learn that he’s dead wrong.
Whoever did this needs to face serious jail time, and also be sued into poverty and literally made unemployable. Sorry, but there is no such thing as too harsh for anyone who would even think of pulling such an outrageous and criminal—yes, CRIMINAL—stunt. Indeed, every time I wonder if private employers should be able to discipline us for behavior off the clock, I think about situations like this. Do you really want to work with someone who finds it acceptable to deliberately cause someone to get a seizure?
Eichenwald declared in no uncertain terms, “This will not happen again.” He’s right. This should never be allowed to happen again—not just to him, but to anyone else. The fact that strobe GIF was even available makes it obvious that this has happened before—but the victims have been too scared to come forward for fear of being trolled. It’s going to take someone willing to stand up to these bastards to ensure that this indeed does not happen again.
That’s what it will also take to get this garbage permanently deleted. If these images don’t violate the TOS and AUPs of every legitimate webhost and imagehost, I don’t know what does.
Go get ‘em, Kurt. You’re fighting for all of us.