The Epilepsy Society is urging social media platforms to add warnings to content containing potentially harmful flashing lights that can trigger seizures in those living with epilepsy.

While broadcasters and productions are required to have such warnings, at present social media is under no such obligations to do so.

According to the charity, an increasing number of people with epilepsy are experiencing seizures triggered by flashing images on social media. As a result, it insists warnings should be included in the government’s new plans to tackle “online harms”.

In the UK it’s estimated that more than 18,000 people have epilepsy that can be triggered by photosensitivity, a form of epilepsy which can be triggered by flashing lights or contrasting and fast-moving images – a condition most common in children and young people.

The charity says cyber-bullies are exploiting this by posting malicious content on purpose and is advocating that anyone found guilty of posting these images intentionally should be prosecuted for assault.

Clare Pelham, Epilepsy Society chief executive, said that many social media users shared potentially dangerous seizure causing content without realising the risk posed to others.

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“However, when it comes to deliberately targeting people with epilepsy with the intention of causing a seizure…we need to call that behaviour what it is – a pre-meditated and pre-planned intention to assault,” she said.

“The government must bring this behaviour within the reach of the criminal law,” she added. These deliberately harmful posts are often masked as content appearing to have useful information about epilepsy, but instead, have embedded images designed to cause a seizure. The charity says that the perpetrators of these harmful posts often target those with epilepsy by tagging their content with keywords related to epilepsy.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today, Sophie Harries, a 22-year-old who has photosensitive epilepsy says navigating social media to avoid triggers is becoming increasingly difficult. “Now I have to be careful of any videos uploaded to social media that contain strobe lighting or flashing imagery,” she said.

“The videos tend to play automatically putting me at risk of a seizure. If my friends have been out clubbing I have to avoid social media for a while.” Recently, Harries flagged a film trailer to Instagram that it contained flashing lights, but was informed by the platform that the video did not breach its terms of usage.

Harries recently come across a post containing flashing images, which had been deliberately tagged to the Epilepsy Society’s Instagram page, “For a 15-year-old today it is an absolute minefield. Young people are permanently on social media with friendship groups,” she said.

The charity has reached out to Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright asking for his reassurance that the new Online Harms paper will protect people with epilepsy.

A spokesperson for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said: “We will place a legally binding duty of care on companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator who will set clear safety standards.

“We are currently consulting on this, and want to hear from the Epilepsy Society, and others, about what steps they would like to see platforms take to make the internet a safer place.”

A spokesperson for Facebook and Instagram told the BBC that “everyone deserves to enjoy the benefits of the internet safely”, adding the organisations were exploring ways to make platforms “more inclusive”.

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