Twitter pulls flickering videos after complaints from epilepsy charity

Social media giant Twitter pulled two flashing videos from Vine after an epilepsy group complained they are "massively dangerous" and might trigger seizures.

Epilepsy Action, a United Kingdom-based epilepsy advocacy group, said flashing bright lights and patterns are commonly reported triggers for seizures. The Vine video ads on Twitter's website, designed to promote new artists, were six-second loops of bright flashing colors.

"Your #DiscoverMusic Vines are massively dangerous to people with photosensitive epilepsy. Please take them offline now," " Epilepsy Action tweeted Friday.

Twitter responded by taking them down some 18 hours later.

"Eighty-seven people are diagnosed with epilepsy every day and that first seizure can often come out of nowhere," Epilepsy Action's deputy chief executive, Simon Wigglesworth, told the BBC. "For a huge corporation like Twitter to take that risk was irresponsible."

In 1997, an episode of the Japanese cartoon Pokemon was reportedly linked to hundreds of seizures.