MD - Suspect Arrested, Accused Of Causing Writer's Seizure

Swirlz

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John Rivello Arrested as Suspect Accused of Causing Newsweek Writer Kurt Eichenwald’s Seizure Via Twitter

An alleged Twitter troll behind a virtual attack that caused Newsweek senior writer Kurt Eichenwald to suffer a seizure was arrested on Friday for cyberstalking. The suspect faces federal charges and could face additional counts in Dallas, where Eichenwald lives, according to the writer.

Steven Lieberman, Eichenwald’s lawyer, named the suspect as John Rivello. A law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity initially confirmed the name, and a United States Department of Justice statement further confirmed it Friday evening. FBI officials arrested the man at his home in in Salisbury, Maryland, around 7 a.m. Friday, according to Lieberman. Rivello was expected to appear at a hearing in federal court in Baltimore on Friday afternoon, the lawyer said.
 
The Justice Department released additional details Friday afternoon after Rivello appeared in court. A search warrant found that in direct messages to other Twitter users, Rivello wrote, “I hope this sends him into a seizure,” “Spammed this at [victim] let’s see if he dies,” and “I know he has epilepsy.” The search warrant also found screenshots on Rivello’s iCloud account “from epilepsy.com with a list of commonly reported epilepsy seizure triggers,” the Justice Department said, and other screenshots related to Eichenwald.

http://www.newsweek.com/kurt-eichenwald-twitter-seizure-arrest-john-rivello-569813

Federal investigators allege Mr. Rivello used a pseudonymous Twitter account, @jew_goldstein, to send a private message to the journalist on Dec. 15 containing an “animated strobe image” and the words: “You deserve a seizure for your post.”
“Upon viewing the flashing strobe image the victim immediately suffered a seizure,” the Justice Department said Friday.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/18/twitter-user-charged-cyberstalking-over-seizure-in/
 
What a *******. Maybe somebody will scare him to death!
 
I had no clue that sc****g was considered derogatory at WS!
 
This really ticks me off! It's hard enough navigating your way around on social media being a epileptic & avoiding videos or memes with triggers. Epileptics don't get much consideration in the day to day world. I hope he gets a lengthy sentence.


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I certainly agree, snowbunny! I don't understand why anybody would be that cruel.
 
So what is this guy Rivello's malfunction? And isn't there some code of conduct on Twitter that if someone is posting about trying to harm someone, you should report it to Twitter, LE, someone?
 
So what is this guy Rivello's malfunction? And isn't there some code of conduct on Twitter that if someone is posting about trying to harm someone, you should report it to Twitter, LE, someone?

His dysfunction? Judging by his chosen username and just my own experiences and the things I've seen other journalists, particularly prominent Jewish ones, go through, the answer is antisemeticism. There's a nasty and all too frequent amount of antisemetic Twitter trolls who sling hate at anyone they identify as Jews but at journalists in particular (who are heavy Twitter users generally due to how much news gets broken on Twitter). Their latest thing is to fake being Jewish themselves to do it which clearly this piece of dirt did.

This kind of stuff is rampant on Twitter and for a prominent journalist I'm sure very hard to avoid. You can block folks and sure you can report them (but I've never heard back on a single report of similar antisemetic and targeted attacks, hard to say what if anything is done) and the biggest issue is that while I understand Twitter shuts some accounts down, especially these fake Jewish antisemetic attack ones (but what gets them shut down isn't the antisemetism but the fake account aspect and maybe just maybe the spamming aspect of their attacks. Sad but true, that hate speech I guess is arguably protected speech or some crap like that) the biggest issue is it's plenty easy to just create a new account. Chances are if this guy hadn't already been through multiple accounts had he been blocked or had his account suspended her would've created a new one until he achieved his objective.

It's astonishing, truly, to see how bad this stuff gets. Of course it isn't just antisemites and Jews and Twitter trolls are all too common but the antisemetic Jew hate thing seems to be particularly rampant on Twitter. I've experienced it myself and it's notable that while I use Twitter for a lot of political and activism type things of various varieties (I hear attacks on women in general and on feminists are big too but never been attacked on Twitter specifically for this stuff or even really my politics for that matter) it's the fact that I'm Jewish that has gotten me targeted before and more than once. And I'm not a journalist nor is my account even remotely popular.

It's late and this stuff frustrates me but you can find plenty of mainstream media articles backing up and going into greater detail on the things I've described. There was a big trend of antisemites sticking triple parentheses around screennames on Twitter like (((@username))) to basically let all their fellow haters know that someone was a Jew and to presumably target hate at them. At this point I imagine most journalists on Twitter just figure it comes with the territory really. A few I know actively "troll the trolls" or just laugh about it which speaks volumes to how ubiquitous the problem is.



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Aropizt, I'm really sorry you've had to put up with this kind of nonsense. I find it sad that some people can't find anything better to do with their time and lives than waste it on being hateful to people they know nothing about.

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Journalist Sues Troll Over Twitter Assault

On Monday, Eichenwald responded by filing a civil lawsuit against John Rivello, a former Marine who allegedly sent the tweet from a Twitter account called "@jewgoldstein," and claiming Rivello is liable under Texas state law for assault and battery and other charges.

"Just like a terrorist who mails a bomb, or an envelope filled with anthrax, Mr. Rivello knew and intended his Twitter message with a flashing strobe light would cause serious harm—and perhaps even death," the complaint reads.
 

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