t.v shows have to put warnings so should social media! 

Recently I had to remove myself from Facebook because of trolls just because I’m photosensitive. I’m a sufferer of N.E.S.A.D (non epileptic seizure attack disorder) and my two main triggers are flash photography and severe stress. 

I breed guppies and am on lots of groups that cater for the hobby. Whilst trying to relax reading group posts someone had uploaded a video of their tank with lots of flashing lights, I felt an aura and put myself in recovery position. When I felt well enough I put my mirrored sunglasses on found the post and took a picture, I  sent a message to the group admin with the photo and asked very politely if it’s possible for admin to ask other members to put “trigger/warning flash photography” so people like myself will see the warning and either scroll past it or take the necessary action to watch it (I.e special sunglasses/glasses take meds etc) though I thought it was a legitimate request not only was it ignored but they removed me from the group. I wrote an unhappy status which isn’t like me at all and quickly got support for the way I had been treated so I decided to share it to other guppy groups in an attempt for admin and group members to label their future videos for people like myself, this got a lot of support and many agreed to label their future videos, others offered emotional support and some even said they have seizures and have the same problem and it was great to build awareness. However there were also some very nasty people, one person said I was fishing for attention, another said it’s my problem not theirs and they shouldn’t have to to which many people said t.v have to do it most you tube videos do it and that it’s a fair request, another one said I should stop using Facebook all together and then there was Ben Craske a nasty piece of ablist work who not only was incredibly ignorant but clearly enjoyed taunting me for my medical disadvantage, he accused me over exaggerating as well as saying the group did the right thing because they can’t cater to every whim and that in this day and age someone is always offended by something but when I tried to explain it was for a legitimate health reason that’s when he got nasty. His comments were ignorant and disgusting and just down right cruel. Many people had my back which I deeply appreciated and one woman said “seriously it takes like two seconds to write a trigger warning what’s the issue with that?” He was unable to answer this question and instead the personal attack on myself grew worse and worse and the other trolls started to gang up on me though dozens of us were tagging in admin to get them to sort it out these requests were also ignored and I felt so so stressed by the situation that I had to put myself in recovery again, I then saw a reply from the admin of the first group who told me I was removed from aquatails  because I was having a strop!! that’s when I decided to come off Facebook. I must admit before I logged off I found out Ben’s girlfriend works in health care with adults and sent her screenshots of her scumbag boyfriend.

I googled it and found out that this is a huge problem all over social media and thousands of people have made direct complaints about the same matter that have been ignored. One man was deliberately posting videos to an epileptic on Twitter and was rushed to hospital, they managed to press assault charges yet Twitter did nothing to assure that something like this wouldn’t happen again. On google There were also reported deaths! Why is this legal?!

this is a serious issue that is affecting people’s health all over the world and I’m not asking for people to not upload those videos at all I’m simply asking for people to label them with a warning for those who are sufferers and a law should be passed that it should be mandatory to do so. We deserve to feel safe online.