Detecting and Defending Against Seizure-Inducing GIFs in Social Media

Abstract

Despite recent improvements in online accessibility, the Internet remains an inhospitable place for users with photosensitive epilepsy, a chronic condition in which certain light stimuli can trigger seizures and even lead to death in extreme cases. In this paper, we explore how current risk detection systems have allowed attackers to take advantage of design oversights and target vulnerable users with photosensitivity on popular social media platforms. Through interviews with photosensitive individuals and a critical review of existing systems, we constructed design requirements for consumer-driven protective systems and developed a prototype browser ex-tension for actively detecting and disarming potentially seizure-inducing GIFs and videos. We validate our system with a comprehensive dataset of simulated GIFs and GIFs collected from social media. Finally, we conduct a novel quantitative analysis of the prevalence of seizure-inducing GIFs across popular social mediaplatforms and contribute recommendations for improving online accessibility for individuals with photosensitivity. All study materialsare available at https://osf.io/5a3dy/.

How accessible is my visualization? Evaluating visualization accessibility with Chartability

“…Marriott et al found that there is no research at all that engages motor accessibility [MLB∗21]. We have found 2 papers that engage cognitive/neurological disability in visualization and 1 student poster from IEEE Vis, which are all recent (specifically intellectual developmental disabilities [WPA∗21] and seizure risk [SB20,SSB21]). We found no papers that engage vestibular accessibility, such as motion and animation‐related accessibility.…”

Photosensitive Accessibility for Interactive Data Visualizations

“…Research on accessibility for people with photosensitivity has primarily focused on detecting seizure-inducing content in GIFs [53] and videos [4,7,18], as both media types have been used to orchestrate malicious attacks against people with photosensitivity on social media (e.g., [3,16,33,46]). The previously mentioned tool PEAT [19] is widely used for checking the safety of videos posted to the internet, while the Harding Flash and Pattern Analyzer [56] is used by broadcast companies to ensure videos shown on television are photosensitivesafe.…”

“…Each screen recording was then tested for seizure-inducing content [19], an open-source photosensitive risk detection system. PEAT is the industry standard for detecting dangerous flashes in videos and is often used as a benchmark in scientific studies involving the photosensitive risk (e.g., [2,4,53]). The procedure used to create all of the screen recordings is included in the Supplemental Material.…”

“…In addition to seizures, individuals report suffering loss of motor control and neurological symptoms that last for days after exposure [33]. Navigating online spaces while avoiding seizure-inducing content is a challenging task for people with photosensitivity [53]. Social media sites such as Twitter and Reddit often serve GIFs and videos containing dangerous flickering effects without warning.…”

Improving Online Accessibility for Individuals with Photosensitive Epilepsy

“…Research has shown that photosensitive risk is strongly correlated with the area of retina stimulated by the strobing or flashing content [9], so it is likely that content that is safe when viewed on a laptop or phone could become seizure-inducing when viewed in an immersive VR context that stimulates a larger percentage of the retina. Interview participants with photosensitivity have described a low-tech solution they use for mitigating seizure-inducing content on a phone or laptop, which is to quickly remove the offending device by shutting the laptop or throwing the phone away from [20]. Getting away from the dangerous content is more involved when the user is wearing a VR headset, making it even more important to establish protective systems within VR software to automatically detect and block seizure-inducing content.…”