Twitter excludes animated PNGs to stop attacks on people with epilepsy

Twitter now excludes from the platform using PNGs animated ( APNG ) to protect people with photosensitivity, including those suffering from epilepsy. The decision was made when last month, trolls took control of the Epilepsy Foundation account and hashtags and began sending pictures that could cause seizures.

APNGs are fun but do not respect autoplay settings, so we remove the ability to add them to Tweets. This is for the safety of people who are sensitive to motion and light imaging, including those with epilepsy.

Note that a moving image can be considered a deadly weapon. This was at least decided by a Texas court in 2016, when it sentenced John Rayne Rivello for sending a GIF to journalist Kurt Eichenwald in order to provoke epilepsy, as it did.

Twitter points out that for animated images you can still use GIFs.